Minus Human: Mountain Lodge Mayhem
by Kimmae
Summary: Sequel. Leaving Ripken Stadium behind, the original four find themselves on a lonely road to Connecticut... which coincidentally also leads to Hell. V 2.0
1. 1

_I do not own VALVe or any of its affiliates. Consider this a disclaimer to the characters/themes/what have you presented in this story._

_Author's note: This is a sort of short-story continuation of _Minus Human_, but it's not necessarily a sequel.__ Thanks to JillDragon for making me put this back up._

_Mountain Lodge Mayhem_

by Kimmae

1

When they were in the city, it was easy; the streets were scattered with abandoned cars, some with their previous owners still seated behind the wheel, but even with those obstacles in the way it still wasn't hard to see an infected charging down the road. They could see zombies in buildings, on top of buildings, in back alleys, under bridges, and in the sewers, where it was blacker than the bowels of Hell. Even in the campgrounds, where they were flanked by trees on either side for miles around, it was easier to watch each others' hides and spot the fuckers coming from yards off.

Now it was hard. They walked down some decrepit highway—number 7 or something, trivially named Kent Cornwall Road—and on either side of them tall bushes and trees stretched and on, each greenery no shorter than six feet. They could hear a river flowing just on the other side of the bush, and towering above that was the mountain, silhouetted black against the night sky. They couldn't see the stars, there was barely a sliver of moonlight out to guide them, and they had no idea where they were going. Goddamn country.

Bill had flip-flopped with his own advice, but had eventually decided several hours earlier that they should have camped the night at the safe spot in Candlelight Farms Airport. At that point it had been only an hour or so after midday and they had plenty of supplies to last them for another twenty-four hours, or so Zoey announced. Louis was hopeful about the road ahead, saying they would be able to clear the country no problem and find an even cozier place to sleep for the night. Francis declared that he hated airports.

Six hours later, they were inching along in the dark, led only by the beam of their flashlights (which could die at any moment) and reacting to the slightest sound. Even with the flashlights, none of them could see past four feet ahead of them in the dark.

"I hate the dark," Francis quipped.

"Coulda fooled me," Zoey replied.

"Keep it down," Bill warned softly, chewing on his toothpick. He'd run out of Romeros two states back, and since had stuck a number of odds and ends in his mouth to fill the empty void in the corner of his lips—toothpicks, twigs, pens. The most appropriate thing he had found that he chewed on in the last week was a stick of gum, fresh from the package. He had chewed the entire pack in less than a day.

"What're the chances something's out there, huh?" Louis added, keeping his voice at a raspy whisper to appease Bill's warning. "Infected people gotta sleep sometime, right? Or even find warm places to sleep. They're probably not wandering around in the bushes right now."

"I'd rather not find out for m'self," Bill added quietly.

They continued on, shuffling like geriatrics over the asphalt to avoid tripping on anything they failed to see. Francis had stumbled a few times already, once stubbing his toe on a discarded car engine, once over a corpse sprawled on the road like a rag doll. Louis slipped on a puddle of mysterious black goo. They thought it was oil until Bill scooped up a sample and rubbed it gently between his fingers, giving it a sniff. "Not oil," was all he had said. He seemed to be more alert from then on, and the other three decided it wise to adopt a similar caution.

It happened back in early September—flu season had come early, and it was sweeping the Eastern seaboard with the wrath of a woman. It had been labelled a national emergency a week after that, much to everyone's surprise west of the epidemic, and roads were blocked and closed off to attempt to isolate the incident. It still managed to spread in every direction, simultaneously taking out the neighbouring states to the west and the south, and seemed to move more quickly than information could travel. It was a week and a half after the first infection that it swamped Philadelphia, and only a day after that that the four survivors had met each other in some of the most bizarre circumstances. Since then, they had stuck together, and splitting up wasn't an item on anyone's plates. After Zoey seemingly cut her ties with her hometown, they became each others' homes. Wherever one would roam, the others would gladly follow.

They were an uncanny group, to say the least. It was like watching any zombie movie made in the last ten years—the same formula seemed to apply to their lives as they stood right now. However, zombie movies ended one of two ways: The group survives in the end, finding the utopia untouched by the Armageddon, or they all die horrible deaths at the hands of the chaos. They hadn't died yet, but nor had they found any form of save havens. So far, all signs pointed that their fate be of the latter ending.

Bill had become the de facto leader, although no one had declared it out loud. Being the oldest and most experienced in any form of combat, Bill often counselled the others on what their next move ought to be. He had served for years in the 1st Special Forces Group, fighting two tours in Vietnam and taking shrapnel in his right knee. Wounded, but still combat-able, Bill had suddenly felt like his life had returned to normal once he donned his uniform and took his rifle in hand at the dawn of the Green Flu. He felt even better in command, although he had never been promoted to commanding officer in all his years in the army.

However, the rest of the group was a motley crew. Bill suffered more than one headache in his time when his duty shifted from command to babysitting. Francis was the worst of them—although he was in his early forties, he had the discipline of a puppy and a Superman mentality when it came to his mortality. He had tattoos covering every inch of his bare skin, save for his face, which seemed to tell a tale of his involvement in Hell's Legion. He had a bloodthirsty need for action, an undying love for hating things, and an illogical need to argue with just about every word that came from Bill's mouth.

Louis, on the other hand, was a thirty-something tech expert with a naive outlook on the whole apocalypse. He was the only one who was carting around the hope, and he certainly had enough for the four of them. But he had picked up skills with a gun in days that took soldiers weeks to learn, although his aim left something to be desired. He was not only intuitive with a gun, but with anything he came across. Louis puzzled their way out of a few tight spots more than once, and outsmarted a horde or two in their time together. Bill was able to put up with Louis to the extent that Louis saved their assess and only got giddy about it afterwards.

And the last, most unique addition to their fireteam was Zoey. Upon first sight, Bill never thought Zoey would make it longer than a day. A college freshman with the slender frame of a stick man, she didn't seem to have a lick of sense or experience about her. But her first words to them were: "Which direction are you headed?" Bill shoved a hunting rifle in her hands, and she proceeded to paint the town red. She had grown up in a small farm town in New York, and her father had taught her to shoot a rifle since she could attend grade school. After her parents divorced, her dad moved on to small town Fairbanks and Zoey remained on the farm, spending her days shooting down gofers, watching horror movies, and playing roughhousing games with the local boys. She was tougher than nails, but had a pretty visage to deceive; Bill liked to pretend that she was the granddaughter he never met.

The four of them had been all over parts of the Midwest in the past few weeks, but their recent misadventure had convinced them to get the hell out of Dodge and aim for greener pastures. They had set out from Ripken Stadium a week prior, putting the hellhole behind them and scarcely speaking of it afterwards. They marched for Norwich, New York, on an unlikely quest to find Zoey's remaining family. All of them knew they would not find anything short of a disaster there, but Zoey soldiered on, knowing that what she wanted most was to see with her own eyes what had happened to her hometown.

When they reached the border of New York state, headed north through Pennsylvania, the fields were alight in flame.

They headed back south, cut through a chunk of New York headed west (keeping clear of the capital), and on a whim continued on through Connecticut. They made small stops at boarded up houses and shops along the main routes, pilfering what they could from abandoned cars and trailers. No one had said a word about what they saw in northern New York, and Zoey was the least expressive of all. Upon approaching the border, her mouth had formed a thin line, and that had been the only reaction she offered, then and now. Bill wanted to offer her comfort, but he knew she was more stubborn than a mule and had the vicious bite of a rabid dog. She was tough, but he knew she was only human. If she wanted to talk, he would let her come to him.

Now they meandered through countryside after countryside, intermittently trying to plot a plan of action and a proper route, but failing to come up with any plausible plan. They hadn't been able to find a proper map since leaving Maryland behind, and so in their brief spurts of consultation with one another, they agreed to first find some sort of tool they could use to direct themselves, preferably a map. Once they actually found one, however, it was a game of gambling—they had no way of knowing what would await them in whichever destination they picked next, and from their previous experience with rescue missions, they had a meagre sense of trust at best when it came to outsiders.

"Is it dinner time yet?" Zoey asked casually.

Louis glanced at his watch and then at Bill. "It's a quarter to seven," Louis announced with a little hope in his voice, wagging his eyebrows at the old man.

"Give it half an hour, then we stop to eat," Bill said, patting the side of the sack hanging off his back.

They passively agreed, continuing on their shuffle. It fell silent for about five minutes—Bill was surprised that none of them had some sort of smart remark to make—before Zoey halted them.

"See that?" she whispered, hunkering down. "Right side of the road, on the shoulder, just at the crest of the hill."

The other three shone their flashlights in the general direction that Zoey directed them in. The beams were weak, and they could only make out an outline of something sitting on the road. Whatever it was, it was inactive—or dead, whatever it may be.

"What do we do?" Louis asked.

Bill shrugged, working his jaw and shifting the toothpick to the other corner of his mouth. "Go knocking," he suggested.

They crept on towards the outline several yards up the highway, each attaching his or her flashlight to their firearm of choice. Each was trigger wary by this point for ammo was running low, and they didn't know where their next bullet supply was coming from. Each was on his guard, and Zoey was the most vigilant of all. Something wicked had violated her over these past weeks, and Bill worried that the fierce warrior in her had drowned out whatever kind of woman she used to be—and ever would be again.

"It's a car," Zoey said, her voice no longer guarded. The three men lowered their guns, but she kept her pistols pointed, her eyes glaring down each firearm. "Looks like it was coming out of that driveway."

Francis pointed his flashlight at the gravel road behind the car. The vehicle was hanging halfway between a hidden intersection in the bushes and the main highway the troupe stood on now. A silver-gold Ford Taurus, early 2000's, unscathed, practically glittering with new-car shine. Francis scoffed. Bill already knew what he was about to say—

"I hate—"

"Save it, Soul Patch," Bill grumbled, approaching the car a little bit less guarded than he'd been traversing the highway earlier.

"Soul Patch?" Francis repeated with indignation, throwing his shotgun over his shoulder and stalking behind the veteran. "It's a friggin' goatee, old timer, not a goddamn mouche."

"Quiet." Zoey hushed them for emphasis. They all stood still, listening, but when no one heard anything further, they all continued on to the car, carefully shining their light upon it.

Zoey first pointed the beam under the car to ensure nothing was hiding under there. All she found was the corpse of a cat. Bill inspected the cab, meanwhile, and found a toddler in the back seat, long since lived. Francis rounded the car and popped the hood, looking at its credentials. "She's a virgin," he declared, closing the hood and patting it. "Still has all her parts."

Louis inspected the license plate, then moved to the driver's wheel. He studied it silently, and Bill could tell the man was deliberately avoiding the sight of the dead baby in the backseat. "The keys are in the ignition... it's got a full tank," he said. They waited a while, and then he finally added: "I don't think it has an alarm system on it."

"A'right," Francis said, reaching for the passenger door, "hop in!"

"Francis," Bill snapped, plucking the toothpick from his mouth and motioning with it at the backseat. "Don't be such a jack ass."

"Not like the kid minds," Francis said with an indifferent shrug. Zoey rounded the car, barely shooting Francis a glare before she gingerly opened the back door and cradled the dead body in her arms. The smell hit them like a battering ram, and Francis and Louis made displays of disgust. Bill gazed down forlornly at the child; Zoey held stern lips as she gently laid it in the grass at the edge of the bush.

"Who would leave a kid in the car?" Louis asked to no one in particular, sounding the most disturbed he'd been in the past few weeks they had together.

"Probably a caring parent," Francis said sarcastically, but Bill figured his words were closest to the truth.

"Well, should we drive it?" Zoey asked, looking to Bill.

He glanced at the car, then back at Zoey. "I haven't driven in over thirty years."

Zoey's eyes popped and she stared at the old man. "Really."

Bill shrugged nervously and fiddled with his toothpick, dropping his gaze. So Zoey looked next to Louis.

"I, uh... I only ever rode transit."

Now hopelessly baffled, she moved on to her last hope. Francis shifted his feet and tipped his chin up. "I only ride bikes."

Zoey remained frozen in place. Then: "Are you serious?" Francis looked sideways, trying to glance at the other men through his peripherals to see if they knew what the problem was. Louis shifted uneasily on his feet, scratching the back of his head as Bill glanced at a nondescript spot on the ground and shifted his toothpick from side to side in his mouth. "None of you can drive a car."

"Gimmie a Harley and I'll drive circles around you," Francis said, affronted.

She scoffed. "But throw you a stick and all you can do is wag it?" Francis gave her a queer look. Zoey stared into their faces, the other two avoiding eye contact. "Wow."

"Well, what, you apparently can't drive, either," Francis retorted.

"I'm a farm girl: of _course_ I can drive," Zoey said, opening the driver's door. "Tractors, motorized lawnmowers, trucks, cars—standard, automatic—quads, dirt bikes, _motorcycles_, boats... I can go on and on," she said, reclining against the open car door.

"Well, quit braggin' and get behind the wheel," Bill told her.

Zoey gave a mock curtsey and then slid into the seat, closing the door behind her. The cab light stayed on for a few seconds, allowing her to buckle her seat belt and find the ignition. Before she sparked the engine, however, she waited for the others to climb into the other seats. Louis and Bill took the back while Francis sat in the passenger's seat. "Shotgun," she had heard him say.

Once they shut the doors and settled in, she glanced at them all; Francis received a sidelong look, while Bill and Louis got a glance of her sharp eyes in the rear view mirror. "Should I start it?" she asked, looking at Bill in the mirror.

Before he replied, he hesitated, looking through the windows. It had been so silent outside that not even the crickets were rubbing their legs together. "Maybe you should wait a sec," he said carefully.

"Why?" Francis said. "Fire'er up, I wanna get to a Best Western before midnight."

"What about the house up the driveway?" Louis said, motioning over his shoulder. "I mean, there should be a house at the end of the driveway. Right?"

"Maybe we should check that out first," Zoey said, reaching for the ignition.

"Wait—!"

Zoey turned the key before she could heed Bill's warning. The engine sparked and roared to life. After she had started the car, she froze and stared at the wheel with wide eyes, realizing what she had just done. She hovered over the ignition, waiting, staring at Bill in the mirror. He stared back, his jaw locked and hard set.

The only sound they heard was the engine rumbling outside.

Zoey let loose a sigh of relief, and Bill relaxed his jaw, sliding down in his seat. "What?" Louis asked, oblivious to what had just happened. "Were you expecting it not to start or something?"

Francis chuckled heartily and slapped his knee. "Ah, Louis, life without you, I tell ya."

Louis grimaced in confusion as he stared at the back of Francis's shaved head. Zoey giggled nervously and Bill guffawed once.

Then she saw it. Out the back window, in between Bill's and Louis's heads, a dark figure stumbled on to the dark driveway, its legs illuminated only by the tail lights. She gasped; the air caught in her throat. Its legs were spindly and long, unnaturally stretched, and sickly pale. It didn't seem to have any clothes on, except for a few scraps of torn away clothes that it must have grown too long for. With the tail lights, she was able to see that it was well over eight feet tall, at the least—maybe even nine—and it looked as if it had an extra lump on its head, which had seemed to double in size, making the infected look like a melon propped up on a stick.

When it teetered forward to the car, Zoey yelped and pulled down the park brake, slammed her foot into the clutch, and pulled the gearshift into reverse.

The tires kicked up gravel as the car lurched back with such ferocity that Louis and Bill flopped forwards into the front seats and Francis smartly smacked his head on the dashboard. Zoey twisted herself around, propping herself on the back of Francis's seat to peer out the rear window as she collided with the infected. It was so tall that when she crashed into its legs, its upper body fell forward on top of the car, denting the hood.

"Jesus H. Murphy," Bill cussed, hacking his lungs out as he tried to get back into his seat. Francis was cursing a mile a minute, and Louis was screaming like a banshee. "Ohmigod!" drowned out both Bill and Francis and filled Zoey with more anxiety.

"Put on your seat belts!" Zoey roared as she yanked the car into first gear and sped off out of the driveway, letting the infected crumple to the road behind them. She hoped she had disabled it thoroughly; she didn't want something like that chasing them down through the state.

Francis finally collected himself as Zoey went from zero to sixty in no time flat. He held onto the dash and cussed enough to make a sailor blush. As Zoey turned on the high beams and adjusted her mirrors (she never would have heard the end of it if Dad were here with her) she saw the infected crawl out onto the highway on all fours, turning in their direction and halting in the middle of the road. It looked like a mutated spider, the way it walked, but that was the least horrifying of it all. It's head had become a small, shrivelled up organ at the top of its body, appearing to be vestigial now that the individual had mutated with the virus. The part she had mistaken for its large, swollen head was actually it's throat—ballooned to more than four times the size of its useless head, looking like a pair of huge black balls hanging off its stick-thin throat. The thing's little mouth opened—a pit of black on its pale, sickly body—and a jet of something came sailing at them.

The back window cracked under the force of the jet that had been launched at them. Zoey felt the car jolt beneath her seat; Louis howled even louder. "Quit yer wailin'!" Bill hollered, attempting to look out the back window at the creature that had attacked them. The entire window had been bathed in black.

"Seat belts, boys!" Zoey cried hoarsely again, reproach in her tone. She could not see out the rear view any longer, but she could see streams of people rushing out from the bushes onto the road from her side mirrors. Old farmers, men and women, dressed in dirty jeans and sundresses alike, chased down the Ford as Zoey ripped down the highway at seventy miles an hour. Shifting into fifth gear, she punched the accelerator and raced down Kent Cornwall road away from the horde. Francis rolled down his window, stuck his head out of it, and hollered, "Fuck alla ya!"

"Put—your—fucking—seat belt—on!" Zoey hissed, smacking Francis on the shoulder with each word. The car jerked a bit as she got more aggressive with her strikes, and Francis quickly pulled the seat belt over his shoulder and clasped it in place, gawking at Zoey like she was a Witch.

"Bill, Louis," she shouted over the roaring wind coming in from Francis's window, "watch the horde and tell me when we've cleared them. Francis, you shoot anything that comes close."

"Hells yeah," Francis said, pulling his shotgun up from between his legs and pumping the action.

Zoey scanned the long road furiously. It was only one stretch of road—no turns and barely any hills—but she had learned the hard way years back not to take chances. She saw scraps of a blown-up tire on the road, and she swerved to dodge it, causing all four of them to sway with the car. Bill and Louis now had their heads sticking out their own windows, Bill holding on to his beret and Louis letting his red tie flap freely in the wind.

"Oh, yeah, bitch, I got ya now," Francis sneered, leaning out the window and bringing the shotgun with him. A boomber wandered onto the road up ahead. She had an unnatural bloat to her, more unnatural than most Boomers were, with huge boils rising up on her naked skin _everywhere_. She had ballooned to the point where all of her clothes had been outgrown, and her sickly skin had taken a green, black and grey tinge to it, from head to toe. Francis tucked the gun into his shoulder, waited, and fired as soon as they got close. Nothing happened. Louis ducked inside just in time; the Boomer opened her mouth and gushed green goo onto the car as they drove past, splattering the side of the vehicle with her vomit, as well as Francis's upper half.

"Fuck!" Francis shouted over and over, wriggling back into the car. He hadn't been hit by much, but the smell hit them harder than the corpse had, and Louis actually kicked the back of Francis's seat in response.

"What the hell, Francis?" Bill growled derisively.

"Shoot with something else other than a shotgun," Zoey said, pinching her nose with her free hand while glaring at the biker in disgust. "You're not firing slugs."

"I'm not snipin' anymore, dammit," Francis bellowed. "You do it, Bill!"

"Agh, goddamn pussy," Bill mumbled just loud enough for Louis to hear as he climbed halfway out his own window (which had child safety locks on it, only rolling down halfway) and readied his assault rifle.

"They're falling behind!" Louis shouted into the car.

A path opened up to the left; with half a moment to spare, she took it, veering sharply off the road. Bill and Louis ducked back into the car as branches and other such foliage smacked them.

The path suddenly bent to the right—Zoey released the accelerator and began to turn early in order to drift into the curve. Right at the bend, smack dab in the middle of the path, was what she had feared most—

The high beams struck the Witch in the face and the haggard woman looked up with her glowing red eyes and grotesquely twisted face before rising to charge the car. Zoey punched the accelerator, hoping to hit the infected before it could get its claws up, and then—BAM—its head snapped against the hood before it went under; the car lurched upward as the body crumpled under the carriage. One of its claws punctured the floor in between Louis's and Bill's feet—the former howled with surprise as he lifted his legs up and tucked them in close, staring at the thin hole that had been torn into the bottom of the car.

But Zoey had other worries. The engine made a more desperate noise—a constant high-pitched whining—and the wheel seemed more stiff, harder to turn. The front axle had been busted after running over the monster.

"Shit!" Zoey cursed, slamming the wheel. They obviously couldn't stop now; she had to push the car until they reached safety. If they reached safety.

Everyone remained silent—even Boomer-splattered Francis—for the next five minutes, as Zoey wound her way through the bike path at alarming speeds. But nothing and no one else met them on the path, and the horde seemed to be far behind them. The bike path rounded out and ran straight for the last several hundred yards, and at the top of the hill at the end lay another road.

Learning from her previous mistakes, Zoey slowed the car down to a crawl and slowly inched out onto the road, hoping the whirring sound of the engine wouldn't attract more infected. The street they pulled on to was deserted, but it appeared that they had rolled into a small town. Nobody knew where they were, and they didn't need to voice the fact to each other. Their dumbstruck faces reflected enough about their knowledge of their surroundings.

Down the road heading west was a bridge leading over the river. East, nothing. A sign straight across from them gave directions. It was brown with a series of pictures of stick men doing various activities..

"Let's go west," Bill said, "there's beds that way."

So Zoey fought with the car to turn left, and she slowly drove down the road. She was afraid that at any minute more infected would come pouring out of the bushes and catch up to them. She didn't dare crawl over fifteen miles an hour.

Five minutes down the road, just over the river, they came across a hotel on the right side of the road, through the trees. Breadloaf Mountain Lodge was a series of cabins tucked away in the trees on the side of the road, with a residence just neighbouring it. Zoey slowly pulled into the parking lot in front of the front office, next to the only other car there, and put the car in park. She cut the engine hesitantly, knowing that they would never be able to start it again.

They sat in darkness for a few moments, the only sound being their breathing. Finally she reached up above her and turned on the cab light.

"We made it," she commented almost dreamily.

"You're startin' to sound like Louis," Bill chided. "Francis, open the glove compartment."

"Why?"

"Just do it, you loafer."

"Normally I'd get all biker gang in your face," Francis said, opening the compartment and shuffling around in it. "But I'm not sure if that was a compliment or an insult, so I'll let it slide."

"Anything in there?" Zoey asked.

"Uhhh... hey, old man, there's some smokes for you!" Francis tossed back a twenty pack towards Bill, who swiped it out of the air almost greedily. When he opened his palm, he saw that he was holding a pack of Camels.

"Damn," Bill said, tucking them in his pocket. "It'll have ter do."

"Lesse here... there's insurance and registration here... a police radar, piece of shit gadget... and a map! Finally, a mother fucking MAP!" Francis pulled it out and fanned it open, howling with laughter all the while.

"_Shh_!" Zoey whispered desperately.

"Put that in your pocket for now," Bill grumbled. "I think we should concentrate on finding us some rooms for the night."

Francis folded up the map, his movements sharp and jerky, like a toddler who wasn't getting his way. Louis then glanced at his watch. "7:12," he declared with a jubilant air.

Zoey looked over her shoulder at Bill, her eyebrows raised high.

Bill slid the pack off his back and handed it to her. "Dig in."

Francis grabbed at the pack first. "All righ," he said. "I've been drooling over these sandwiches all day. _Sandwiches_! Just too bad we didn't find any roast beef."

"You're not going to eat in my car, are you?" Zoey shot angrily at Francis.

"Actually, lady, this car belongs to one... Timothy Ethier, so, no, we're not going to eat in _your_ car. Besides, it doesn't look like you treat it all too well in the first place."

Zoey glanced around the car. The front was slightly dented from ramming into the Witch, as was the top of the car from hitting the mysterious infected; the rear window was slathered in the same black substance Bill had found earlier on the highway; faint smoke was rising out from under the hood. She knew that the right side of the car would also be bathed in Boomer bile.

"All right then," she said faintly, receiving a sandwich from Francis, "eating in the car."


	2. 2

_I do not own VALVe or any of its affiliates. Consider this a disclaimer to the characters/themes/what have you presented in this story._

2

They had found a cooler in one of the shops in the airport that was still functional; within it were pre-made sandwiches. Bill had told them only to take so many, for the food would spoil before they could eat them all. The other three argued about staying for a while until food ran low, but Bill didn't like the idea of staying in one place longer than he had to. He did suggest staying the night, but once he had convinced the others that hunkering down in an airport for what might be the rest of their lives was not a good idea, they were eager to set out on the road again.

And now here they were, parked in front of the Breadloaf Mountain Lodge, brushing off the crumbs that had fallen from their sandwiches into their laps and preparing to scout the lodge for an appropriate cabin to sleep for the night.

"We're gonna stick together tonight," Bill said, "so find one that has at least two beds and looks like it can take a few lashings from a Tank."

"Everyone ready?" Zoey asked, cocking her pistols and turning on her flashlight.

The three answered unanimously in the affirmative, each with their own characteristic tone. "Let's mosey," she said, pulling the door handle and kicking the car door open.

They all stepped out cautiously onto the parking lot, aware that the infected had become increasingly sneaky over the past couple of weeks. Especially Hunters: they no longer growled, and some were more and more inconspicuously dressed than the last. They had come across a Hunter wearing army fatigues and hiding out in the bush along the highway. Next they were expecting ghillie suits, or, as Louis had jokingly suggested, invisibility cloaks.

"I think we're clear," Bill said thoughtfully.

"Should we try the front desk first?" Zoey suggested.

"I guess we gotta check everything sooner or later," Bill said. "Let's do what the lady says."

They huddled close together and moved as a unit—Bill and Zoey at the front, scanning from front to side, Francis and Louis at the back, walking backwards and occasionally throwing glances over their shoulders. Bill and Zoey flanked the door, Zoey with the vantage point of the crack in the door. Bill nodded to her, and she slowly pushed it open, shining her light into the dark room.

Nothing was there. There was a guest registry and a small display full of pamphlets and brochures of all the ski resorts, hiking trails and hot springs to visit when in the beautiful countryside of Connecticut. In the back there was an electronically sealed safe and a filing cabinet labelled "KEYS."

"Here we are," she said, pulling open the drawer (which was luckily left unlocked) and plucked out all the keys, tossing them each at her teammates. "Okay, looks like there's only so many rooms to check out, so we won't have too much work cut out for us."

"Anything in the safe?"

"Francis."

"What?"

They left the front desk behind and began checking the neighbouring buildings. Both were locked, but nothing appeared to be disturbed inside when they banged on the doors, so they assumed if there was anything in the houses, it was dead. A slim path led from the parking lot to the line of cottages on the first tier of the hillside, and they climbed it precariously, finding it hard to climb sufficiently in the dark. More than once someone stumbled in the path and mumbled something along the lines of an interjection or a curse.

There were five cabins: Oak, Maple, Pine, Birch, and Dogwood. And they were all empty; whoever had been inhabiting Oak last had left their luggage and took off in a great hurry, or so it seemed. The cabin itself was _huge—way _bigger than Zoey's dad's apartment in Phili. There were ivory and brown suede couches (one of which had a pull out bed), a large plasma television, a sizable kitchenette, a bathroom—with water _still_ in the toilet tank—and two twin sized beds in the bedroom. Zoey stood in the middle of the dark cabin with her mouth hanging open.

"I'm not leaving," she said, half exasperatingly and half relieved. "You guys can go scout. I'm taking a luxury bath."

"Who says you get the bath?" Francis argued.

"Yeah," Louis chipped in, rubbing his chin. "I could use a little R n' R, myself."

"Forget that!" Zoey tested the light switch hesitantly; the action felt alien, given that she never expected a light switch to work for her ever again. To her general surprise and delight, two lights in the front room went on, and the fan by the kitchenette started to _whir_ quietly.

"Oh... God," Zoey moaned softly, turning off her flashlight and collapsing into the largest couch by the television. "You must still like us if this isn't a dream."

"Ni—ice," Louis said, putting the safety on his gun and placing it down. He stretched and yawned, walking around the suite and checking out the little nooks and crannies. "Oh, ho ho, shit, I think the fridge still works."

"Shoulda brought more sandwiches," Francis said with a remorseful shake of his head.

"Lights out in five," Bill grumbled.

"Aw, c'mon," Zoey whined, flipping over onto her stomach and resting her chin on her fists. "What if we block out all the windows and stay really quiet, huh? Can't we enjoy this at least once?"

"Yeah," Louis said with wonderment as he stared into the fridge, "how many more places we gonna come across that have electricity?"

Bill shot him a reproachful look. "That's awfully pessimistic of you," he growled. "Besides, our chances of coming across a place like this again are pretty damn slim if a horde gets attracted by the pretty lights in the cabin on the hillside. We best enjoy life the safest way possible." Bill proceeded to extract the package of Camels from his front pocket and slip one between his lips.

"Um, Bill?" Zoey began with a playful, patronizing tone. "This is a non-smoking facility. Said so at the front desk."

Bill swiped the match against the ball of his thumb and cradled the embers as he lit the cigarette, all the while eyeing the young woman down. "Draw all the blinds, and for Chrissakes, keep 'er _down_."

"Thanks, Bill," Zoey said with one of the first smiles she wore since he met her. She rolled off the couch and quickly got to work making sure none of the light would leak out the windows. The men turned off their flashlights, put away their equipment, and started to thoroughly inspect the cabin a second time. They found no other useful supplies other than changes of clothes; none of which, unfortunately, fit Francis. It seemed a man and a woman had stayed here last. Bill picked out a few articles for Zoey and stuffed them under his arm to go deliver them to her in the front room.

He found Zoey gawking at the television. It was on mute, but the presidential speech was playing, the minute details of his face discernible even from Bill's distance. She turned to him, still gawking, and pointed to the screen. "It's still playing. I thought the broadcast would have died weeks ago."

"Zombies haven't figured out how to get to space and screw around with satellites yet," Bill said, putting the clothes down on the couch. "_Yet_."

"Hey, Zoey," Louis whispered, coming into the room from the kitchen, "there's running water. I dunno how hot it'll be, but if you want that bath, maybe you can run one."

She looked up hopefully at Bill. He had been prepared to turn her down—they had already overstepped every safety boundary he would have liked to enforce—but the look on her face mingled with the grease in her hair and the dirt on her skin made him grumble and wave his hand dismissively.

Zoey leapt off the couch, snatched up the pile of clothes Bill had brought her, and quietly zoomed off to the bathroom, whispering "Thanks, Louis!" before shutting the door behind her. Instead of running the tap full force, she let it trickle into the tub, or so Bill heard. He sat on the couch, removed the smoke from his lips, and let out a gargantuan puff of smoke.

"I've never seen her like this," Louis said with a bright smile. "So happy."

Bill sighed heavily, glancing to the kitchenette where she had disappeared. "I wonder how long it'll last," he said sorrowfully.

"This speech, huh?" Louis went to un-mute the broadcast, but Bill more or less hissed at him. Francis walked into the room wiping his front down with a wet rag as Louis found the subtitle option on the TV; the message had ended and restarted just as the function kicked in. They read the captions as they scrolled onto screen under the president's sweaty, unnerved face.

"_...became an engrossing epidemic: the Green Flu. Some of you have been confined to your homes, either by force or by urgent request by the United States government or by CEDA. Some of you have been robbed of your natural rights as Americans; attending your jobs, contacting your loved ones, or leaving your own country. These things have been taken from you because we are now going through a crisis, and in order to stop this crisis here and now, we must work together and endure these hard times._

"_What began as a flu scare became a deadly virus outbreak. The Civil Emergency and Defence Agency has been doing all it can for the situation at hand; our states, our cities and our homes will be placed under quarantine in order to resolve the issue as quickly and as carefully as possible. CEDA has released official instructions on how to handle an individual you believe to be infected with the Green Flu. America, I ask you now: it is your duty to your country and your people to abide by those rules and guidelines. Not to abide them is to ensure our demise._

"_I come to you at this dire hour, looking not for blind devotion, but for faith and unity. We have overcome tragedy, heartbreak, and threat together once, and now we need that same strength now more than ever. Not just for your America, but for the world._

"_This will be my last broadcast, which will be played on a loop on all national news networks. The White House will be placed under complete isolation for an undisclosed period of time. Until I can broadcast again, I wish you health, I wish you safety, and I pray to God for our salvation."_

The screen cut to a blue frame with the White House logo on it before the president reappeared and the broadcast began again. _"As some of you may know, a terrible affliction has fallen upon your fellow Americans in the East. What started as a flu scare became an engrossing epidemic..."_

"I think I've got this damn thing memorized by now," Francis said.

"Really?" Louis said. "I haven't gotten to see it much."

"Seeing it more won't do you much," Bill grumbled as he reached for the remote. He skipped through the channels, all of which had a "Stand by" frame frozen on screen, snow, or the president's speech. Bill turned off the television, took his cigarette out of his mouth, and snubbed it on the sole of his boot. He let the smoke stream out of his nostrils.

"Find anything in the fridge?" Francis asked them.

"There's bottled water and frozen dinners," Louis said, "but I think the dinners expired a while back."

"Are they Hungry Mans?" Francis asked, strolling over to the kitchenette. "I thrived off of expired Hungry Man meals for months once—holy mother of God, there's beer."

"Oh, yeah, forgot to mention," Louis said.

"Beer," Bill growled.

"Not just beer," Francis replied. "_Canadian_ beer."

"I thought you said you hated Canada," Louis said, adjusting his tie.

"Yeah, but not their beer." Francis pulled out the pack and brought it back to the couches, handing Louis one, then Bill. The old man grumbled and waved his hand dismissively. "Suit yerself," Francis said, plunking down on the couch with a contented groan and twisting off the cap. He took four gigantic gulps, swallowing half the bottle, then sighed happily. "Ahhh... Kokanee."

"Are you kidding me?" Bill snapped. "You can father children, but you can't figure out how to drink? Good God, man, haven't you ever had a real beer?"

Francis waved the bottle in front of Bill's face and took another sip.

"Pah. Expensive piss is all that is."

Francis mumbled a retort under his breath but didn't bother saying it out loud. He lifted his hips and reached into his back pocket, extracting the map and slapping it down on the coffee table. "Should we get to work, then?"

"What about Zoey?" Louis said.

"We'll give her a break. Besides, she gets to make the final decision of where we go." Bill unfolded the map and smoothed it out as best he could; the creases were permanently bent into the paper, and the map refused to sit flat on the surface. They discerned their location and began tossing ideas to one another where to go.

"Why don't we head for Boston?" Francis said next, pointing to the map and burping in his mouth.

"Boston? Are you off your rocker, boy?" Bill retorted.

"Call me boy one more time, old man." Francis shoved a finger in Bill's face.

"Boston's probably the lowest level of Hell right now, dimwit," the old man barked, slapping the map for good measure. "The whole place is probably teeming with zombies. Irish zombies, to boot."

Louis laughed out loud and slapped his knee. "I think you've been watching too many Irish gang movies," he said.

"Not Boston," Bill grumbled with finality, pressing his fist into the map firmly. "We don't want to be anywhere near a metropolis. That's just askin' for zombie bites."

After a bit more debate, in which Louis began to point to nearby locations at random, they fell silent, each staring at the map pensively and looking more and more perplexed as time went on.

"Let's skip over Maine," Francis said, tracing his finger in a wide arc on the map around Portland, "and head right for a small town on the harbour. Like... Eastport."

"And how do you suggest we make it over five-hundred miles without knowing if we'll have enough supplies?" Bill challenged.

"It's not like you're comin' up with a savin' grace, old man," Francis said. "What do you think we should do?"

Bill shook his head. "You won't like it."

"Spit it out."

"Canada."

"Aw—_HELL _no!"

"We pass through Albany," Bill said, tracing a route. "Take Interstate 87 north and ride it into _Québec_."

"F—ucking _French_ Canada?"

"We'll pass over the 48th," Bill continued as if Francis hadn't interrupted him at all, "and if we don't meet anything there, we'll head on up to Montréal."

"I thought we were supposed to avoid big cities," Louis interjected.

Both Francis and Bill shot him looks.

"What?" he said defensively, "Montéal isn't a hamlet or anything."

"That might be our safest bet," Bill said, tapping his finger over the northern city. "And it's much closer than Eastport."

"Christ on crutches," Francis whined, downing the rest of his beer morosely.

"Why is it safer, you think?" Louis asked Bill.

"Because it's Canada."

"That's pretty narrow-minded."

"Their population is so sparse that we'd be able to spread out and hunker down in the country," Bill said. "Once winter hits and all the zombies freeze to death, we can slowly make our way back south."

"I don't like it," Francis said, shaking his head at the map.

"Really?" Bill said, mock surprise in his voice. "You don't _hate_ it?"

Francis grumbled and got off the couch, heading back to the fridge. "Hey, Zoey," Francis called, looking towards the bathroom door. "Almost done?"

"No," she called back. Francis grumbled again, plucking an expired hot pocket from the fridge.

Zoey spent the next twenty minutes in the bathroom, thoroughly soaking her hair and scrubbing her skin clean. The water had turned black by the time she was done. She dried herself off with a hand towel (there were no normal sized towels left in the bathroom) and brushed her hair out with a comb missing nearly half its teeth. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail again before dressing in the clothes Bill had found her. The panties were a bit tight and the bra had too small cups, but the red T-shirt and jeans seemed to fit loosely enough that she could jump into action if she so needed to. She left the bathroom behind reluctantly, stepping out into the kitchenette with a bout of steam in her wake. "Done," she said.

"Finally," Francis huffed, rising from the couch and marching to the bathroom. "Here I am, covered in puke, and you jump in the damn bathtub. Why'd Francis have to wait?"

"Suck it up," she said, snatching his beer from his hand as he passed and taking a sip. He gawked at her heatedly and shook his head as he closed the bathroom door behind him.

"So, have a game plan?" Zoey said, taking another sip and motioning to the map on the table.

"Montréal."

"Yeck. Really?"

"Don't you whine about it, too," Bill grumbled, reaching for another cigarette in his pocket and searching for a match.

Zoey walked over to the map and scoffed. "Why not just stay in Connecticut?" she said.

"We can't stay here forever," Bill replied.

"No, not _here_, per say, but just in the mountains." Zoey waved a hand around her. "Better to stay south than to head north when it's getting colder."

"She has a point," Louis said. "Maybe we can scavenge enough food and supplies to last out the winter here."

"We'd be snowed in and starved to death," Bill said, lighting his cigarette.

"Or we could go north... and then get snowed in and be starved to death," Zoey said. "Bill, no matter where we go, it's going to be the same problem. Let's just stay here and make the best of it."

"I like the way she thinks," Louis said, taking another slow sip.

"Fine, I s'pose you're right," Bill said with a sigh, tossing his extinguished match away carelessly.

"I suppose I am, aren't I?"

After they finished their beers, Louis had the bright idea of using the empties as Molotov cocktail bottles. He and Zoey went out the car and inspected it. In the trunk, they found a myriad of garden tools. A pair of shears, buckets, planters, hoes, spades, plotters—and a hose. Using the shears, They cut off a length of the hose and fed it into the gas tank on the passenger's side. Louis sucked on the end of the hose until the gasoline rushed into his mouth—coughing and spluttering, he tipped the hose down and Zoey caught the black gush in the buckets. Louis tucked his face in the crook of his elbow and tried to stop coughing. When he did, he started rubbing his sleeve against his tongue, trying to get the gasoline off.

"Only ever seen it in movies, huh?" Zoey said.

"Yeah... I didn't think it'd be this gross."

"At least it works!" Zoey said, switching buckets before the first could spill over. "One of the many things I learned from movies that turn out to work in real life."

"What else you learn?" Louis asked, a slight lisp to his voice as he continued to lick.

"Shoot 'em in the head."

When they got back inside, they filled their empties with gasoline. Using a ratty T-shirt from the spare luggage in the other room, they tore strips and fed it into the bottles. No one knew how to properly make a Molotov cocktail, but Bill had said that was the best they would get—they would just have to make sure that wherever they lit them, they could throw them far and fast. "Otherwise we won't have throwin' hands anymore," he had said.

Francis finished his bath, and Zoey suggested washing their clothes in the tub. Since she was the only one who had ever done a lick of laundry in her life, she volunteered her services grudgingly, muttering something about men and uselessness. Louis insisted his shirt be washed separately, so Zoey put it in the sink. The only thing they could find in the cabin close enough to laundry detergent was body wash they'd found in one of the bags. Better than nothing.

When she returned, she found everyone dressed in new outfits that did not suit them at all. Louis wore a pair of jeans with a Metallica T-shirt—and his red tie loosened around his neck. Bill wore a button-up shirt with blue and grey stripes up and down it, with dress pants that stopped around his ankles. He still wore his beret, of course; he had steadfastly refused to be parted from it, even for washing. But Francis—Francis wore a two-sizes-too-small, yellow haiku joke T-shirt with khaki shorts that were so tight on him that the pockets stretched against his thighs and the button came nowhere near its slot. A thin line of his midriff was visible between the hem of his shirt and the rim of the shorts.

"Francis," Zoey said, a smirk twisting uncontrollably on her face.

"Not a word," he growled, barely looking at her as he grabbed for a bottle on the table. As he tipped the drink against his lips, he jerked violently and slammed the beer against the table. "Fuck!"

Louis roared with laughter and instantly tried to silence himself when Bill shot him a heated glare. "How's your cocktail taste?" Louis wheezed.

"Jesus shit, at least _separate_ the fucking things," Francis said, waving his hands about angrily.

"I think I liked you guys better in scrubs," Zoey said, picking up a beer and twisting off the cap. She eyed Francis's tattoos poking out of the light yellow sleeves of his shirt, then the few surrounding his neck. "I think yellow's your colour."

"What the _fuck_ did I just say?"

Bill grumbled. "Shut up and get some rest. Our clothes should be dry by morning."

Zoey started to chug the rest of her beer. She smacked her lips, wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand, and put the empty on the table. "I'm off to bed, then."

"Night, Zoey," Louis said.

The two older men only grumbled in her wake. She walked through the bedroom with the twin beds and through the door that conjoined the other suite. A bedroom and bathroom to her own—something she had only dreamed of in the last few weeks. She all but tore back the covers and slipped into bed, eager to feel the sheets against her skin. When she settled, she sighed and sunk in, letting her body relax and go limp. She lay like that for several minutes before wriggling around and slipping off her clothes. Jeans, shirt, bra—just left in her underwear, the best pyjamas. The sheets felt even better, with no layers in between, but it would have been better if her legs weren't so hairy and her back wasn't such a bloody mess.

She could feel the wounds prominently against the bedsheets—the scars hadn't fully healed, but with no ointment or other healing agents about to apply to them, they had been tender and itching, like thousands of mosquito bites. They formed crisscross trails and created thick, uneven lumps in areas, making her feel a hunchback. She still remembered the Witch clearly—she had the pleasure of meeting it more than once. Hundreds of infected and people in the field, and it had zeroed in on her. Pinning her down, shredding her back like paper...

She sighed, rolling onto her side to rid herself of the sensation. She stared at the wall across from her. Listened.

The men were still talking in the living room beyond her door and their bedroom. It bothered her that she wasn't a part of the conversation. She had never been not a part of the conversation—that is, of course, before they found her. Since then they had been in the same place, talking about the same thing, working as a unit. It felt odd to be singular. Suddenly the novelty of her own room wore off before she could put her finger on what was wrong.

Eventually their conversation ceased, the lights went out, and Francis and Louis entered the bedroom next to her and settled into their beds. She listened to them for a long time, to their even breathing. Francis started snoring.

After what might have been an hour, Zoey dressed in her clothes again then slowly sneaked through her door. It was pitch black in the room, but she could make out the outlines of the beds. She quietly tiptoed through the room to the living room beyond.

Moving slowly and quietly, she slid over to the pullout couch. Bill was snoring softly. When she lowered down it creaked under her; she cringed and grit her teeth, but Bill didn't stir. She lifted his blanket, slid underneath, then settled next to him, lying on her side, facing him. His snoring was light and nasally; his mouth was hanging wide open, and it sounded as if his nostrils were mostly clogged.

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she screwed up her face to keep from crying. _NO crying—s_he may as well have been lying naked beside Bill. She quickly and quietly wiped her tears and jammed her fist against her mouth, ensuring that no sob would pass her lips. Her legs twitched as she had the urge to draw them against her chest, but she stopped short, aware that she'd knee Bill in the side otherwise.

Bill smacked his lips and wiped the corner of his mouth with his wrist sluggishly. The action woke him up, and he startled, looking from side to side until he realized Zoey was lying next to him. "Oh... Zhoey," he said groggily. He hesitated, holding his breath and thinking. Finally he said, "You okay?"

"Yeah, sorry Bill." She made sure to whisper to keep her voice sounding even. "You mind me being here?"

"No," he muttered. "No, no. Uh... do you... do you need to talk, or somethin'?"

It was obvious to her Bill was still half asleep, by the way he slurred his speech and by the questions he was asking. Bill had certainly tried to pry her open and spill her clean before, but he often kept it subtle. He also knew she tended to deny him any satisfaction of hearing her break. She had a reputation to uphold.

Instead of replying "No" right away, she hesitated, her breath hitching as a sob washed over her. She screwed up her face again, glad that the dark kept Bill from seeing her crying. Silence was her best answer, she decided.

"Well, try to get some shuteye," he muttered after a while. He shuffled around and prepared to go back to sleep.

She inched closer to him and leaned forward until her forehead rested against his shoulder. She felt him shift to glance down at her, then promptly lay back.

Zoey closed her eyes, feeling the last tears sneak out before she was able to rest and drift off.


	3. 3

_I do not own VALVe or any of its affiliates. Consider this a disclaimer to the characters/themes/what have you presented in this story._

3

When her eyes snapped open, it was still dark. Bill was still snoring, his gun was still next to the couch, and Francis and Louis were still apparently in their own beds. But something had woken her up and brought her to full alert, and she wasn't about to fall asleep again any time soon.

Slowly sitting up, she glanced around the living room. No one else—or nothing else—was in there with them. It was nearly dead silent. She stayed propped up on her elbow for five minutes, listening intently. Before she was about to settle back down again, she heard it—faint, distant, almost nonexistent: an unnatural howl far off down the road. Infected or not, she could not tell. But it was not something she could ignore.

Zoey was uncharacteristically scared. Every time a Tank or a Hunter could be heard in the distance, she was more worried than when they appeared. Even though the threat was far off, or so it sounded, she could barely muster anything louder than a whisper. "Bill," she rasped, "Bill!"

"Sir," he mumbled, shaking awake and smacking his lips again. "Hur, er—what? Zoey?"

"Shh!" she hissed. "Do you hear that?"

Bill fell utterly still and listened quietly. Minutes passed, still he listened. When the yelp sounded again, Zoey wanted to cower but held fast in Bill's presence.

"Shit," Bill growled, slipping out of bed quietly. He stepped into the slacks quickly and quietly, reaching for the gun and creeping towards the window. He leaned against the wall next to it, gently pushing the blinds aside by a fraction and peeking out to the parking lot. He scanned the lot thoroughly for several minutes. Zoey watched him anxiously.

"Wake the men," Bill muttered so quietly she almost missed it. Zoey slid off of the mattress as smoothly as a shadow and crept towards the bedroom directly across from her. She crouched and stepped one foot in front of the other, practising what she had seen Bill doing hundreds of times before. When she got to their doorway, she whispered their names quietly in earnest.

"I don't want a Twinkie farm," Francis said, sitting up suddenly.

"Francis," Zoey said, her voice rising only slightly, "we may have company."

"Shi—"

"_SHH_!"

Francis froze, covers half thrown and one leg out the bed. He then quietly rose and reached for his shotgun, and Zoey zipped by Louis's bed to shove him awake before going to retrieve her pistols from her own bed. Out of habit, she ejected the rounds and checked how many there were (even though she had the number obsessively memorized) before she reloaded them. Quietly rushing back to the living room, she checked that Francis and Louis were getting ready. The latter had leapt out of bed, checked his guns, and was ahead of her out the door to the living room.

"Bill, we okay?" Louis asked.

"Don't look like it," he growled quietly. He was still peeking out the crack in the blinds. "I've never seen one of these before; I don't know what we're in for."

Bill moved aside so Louis could peek out the window. Zoey hung back anxiously, watching the both of them as Francis came out of the bedroom, trying to step lightly where normally he stomped. Louis hissed once he took a peek out the window.

"What?"

"Come look at this," Louis told Zoey.

She inched over to the window and took a look. About thirty yards away, down the slight slope of the hill, was an infected staggering on the highway. At first it appeared to be wearing a straitjacket, but Zoey soon realized that it was only its pale arms wrapped tightly around itself at an odd angle. The thing had shaggy black hair that fell over its face; it staggered around as if drunk. Then it made that familiar, frightening noise—something between a dying cat and a whirring motor. Zoey reflexively backed away from the window as if it had seen her. She clutched her pistols and tried to even her breathing to calm her beating heart. "Do we just let it pass?" Zoey asked.

"Let's hope it does," Bill said.

They remained still as stone, Bill peering out the crack between the curtain and the window, watching the infected stumble up the route. When Bill seemed to visibly relax, so did the others. It all shattered once Bill cursed harshly under his breath.

"What?" Zoey whispered.

"It's interested in our car," he said.

Zoey crept around to the other side of the window and peered out the other crack. She had to crane her neck and rely on her peripherals in order to see the infected, but she didn't need to have a clear viewpoint to see it was interested in the dried boomer bile splattered on the side of the Ford. Since the zombie's face was completely veiled by black hair, she couldn't tell if it was nuzzling the door or licking it.

"Gross," she muttered.

"Oh, sweet Mary."

"What, Bill? What?"

"It brought friends."

Francis stood over Zoey and attempted to peer out with her as Louis moved to Bill's side to do the same. Zoey shifted her feet in order to peer down the opposite direction of the road, and gasped when she saw it.

"What's with these new mutated ones?" Francis breathed.

"I thought I broke its legs," Zoey whined. "I rammed into it... I should have broken its legs."

It stood at least eight feet tall, but its body was thinner than one of Francis's muscled arms. The infected's head was miniscule and the skull was prominent, jutting out savagely under the taught skin. The odd sac hanging off its neck was black and bulging. The creature's mouth was pulled open permanently by the sheer size of the goitre, and it looked as though it should be too top heavy to walk on its spindly legs. Zoey could notice a prominent limp; the zombie favoured its right side and moved no faster than a crawl.

The first zombie grew tired of the car and continued up the path leading to the cabins.

"Oh, motherfucker," Louis whimpered.

"Keep quiet and it'll walk on by," Bill grumbled, grabbing Louis by the scruff and holding him close. "Don't go wetting your panties 'til the thing bites your balls off."

As the creature approached, the four of them could hear that it breathed with a high-pitched whine as if it were suppressing a howl with every breath it took. It seemed to shift its arms around that were locked around its neck, like it was trying to scratch and couldn't reach. It was as if its arms were permanently set into its torso. As the infected got closer to the cabin, something unexpected happened—the zombie on the road down below had stopped and turned toward the cabin, facing the Straitjacket, and with a quiet wheeze, a spear of black liquid shot from it's jaws and rocketed out.

The force with which the Straitjacket was hit was so strong that the zombie flew sideways and smacked into the side of the cabin. The prominent _thwack_ that resounded ensured that something had broken, either the cabin or the infected or both. Zoey could not see the zombie from her vantage, but she could certainly feel where it had struck the cabin through the wall. It howled—louder than before—a piercing shriek like a banshee's assaulted her ears and she covered them with her fists still clutching her pistols. She grit her teeth and winced, but her eyes flew wide open as she saw the straitjacket belting down the hillside towards the road. It continued to wail, its call echoing against the sky, and as it disappeared into the trees past the goitre, another call sounded on the horizon.

"I hate hordes," Francis rasped gravely.

The night was alive with the sounds of infected from all around the hotel.

"What do we do?" Zoey asked Bill.

"Stay quiet," he muttered.

"What if they swarm us?" she asked.

"We could climb the trees," Louis suggested.

"We stay put," Bill snapped, "hope they aren't drawn to us, and _keep_ _our mouths shut_."

Zoey sealed her lips swiftly and peered out the crack in the curtain again. And there it was—not four feet away from the window, staring right at her. She had been so surprised, so caught off guard, she couldn't stop herself before the scream fled past her lips. Just as her scream filled the room, the Goitre bent over and shot a stream of black at the window. It cracked under the force of the impact; a few chips of glass sprinkled onto Zoey's face from the side of the window, leaving light scratches on her cheeks.

They'd been spotted; the house could be taken down within minutes. "We gotta go!" Bill said, shoving Louis hard towards the front door. The vet went to the coffee table to collect the Molotovs, shoving one in each survivor's hand as he passed. They got into position—Francis stayed at Zoey's back while Louis covered Bill's. She and Bill flanked the door and he nodded to her to take point. She tore open the door and slid in front of it, pistols at the ready.

The Goitre was standing right in front of the door, bent over so it's mouth was eye level with Zoey. Up close, she could see the details of its slimy white face—its eyes had lost any semblance of humanity. Instead of the rheumy eyes that most of the infected had, its eyes were pitch black, its sockets a deadly grey colour, and the veins stretching across its skin as equally dark. It looked like a horrific version of a drama mask.

She froze for only a moment before she heard a light wheezing noise come from the back of its throat. "DUCK!" she shouted, dropping to her haunches as more black shot out from its mouth like gunfire. It struck the wall behind her with a loud _crack_, causing a painting on the opposite end of the wall to swing and fall to the floor.

She glanced up at the infected as Francis rushed it. He flew over Zoey and collided into the spindly zombie, sending it backwards, limbs flailing comically. The inertia sent them tumbling; along the way Francis's Molotov slipped from his back pocket. The infected made no noise, and only Francis's occasional curse could be heard as they rolled away.

The sounds of wild howling and hooting grew closer, drawing in from every direction. With a quick glance down the route, Zoey could just see the outline of several infected charging down the asphalt towards them.

She aimed her pistols on the Goitre, waiting for them to come to a halt and give her an opening to fire. She needed to make sure Francis was ready for combat as soon as the horde closed in on them; four against hundreds were poor odds, but three against hundreds were sorer. Francis used his momentum to shove the wiry creature further down the slope into the parking lot. When it was rolling all on its own, Zoey aimed. She only had eight shots left in her pistol, so she reserved three bullets for the Goitre. The first struck the concrete next to its thin torso; the next just beside its enlarged throat. "C'mon!" she growled as she aimed for the third time.

The shot missed by a foot; the infected got to its feet and hobbled into the trees beyond as the horde zeroed in on the cabins.

Bill grabbed her shoulder and shoved her down as he threw the Molotov high and far over her. The bottle exploded, sending shards of glass into the crowd of zombies around it. Only two fell.

"Find a tree!" Bill shouted, breaking off from the group. Zoey led the way around the back side of the cabin, the others hot on her heels. She shoved her pistols into her front pockets and took a running jump at a pine tree. Having spent many years of her childhood climbing things, she scaled the trunk of the tree faster than any city boy could. As she neared the middle, she felt a swarm of zombies below shoving at the trunk harmlessly, trying to get her to fall.

Once she was secure, she realized she had no means to defend herself. It had all rushed upon them so fast that she hadn't thought about how she was going to light her Molotov and use it to her advantage. With only five bullets left, she didn't dare open fire on the crowd below. She was sufficiently cornered.

She tried searching for the others to see what tree they had landed themselves in. She couldn't see Louis or Bill—they were likely on the far side of the cabin—but she could see Francis about four trees away from her, clumsily climbing one-handed. Even though it was thoroughly dark outside, she could see his brightly coloured T-shirt through the night. So could the infected.

"Fucker!" Francis shouted as an infected leapt up and latched onto his leg. Francis brought up his other foot and stomped down hard on the zombie's face. It fell to the ground limply; three more jumped up to try and get at Francis. One began climbing the tree after him.

She gasped and looked down at her own tree. Sure enough, two infected were climbing the trunk up after her. Their movements were rapid but jittery; it wouldn't take long for them to catch up to her.

"Francis!" Zoey shouted, looking for the yellow T-shirt. "How many rounds do you have?"

"Not enough!"

"Got a lighter?"

"What?"

"A lighter!"

"Fuck no! I left that in my other pants pocket!"

"Not really funny right now!" Zoey suppressed a nervous gasp as one of the infected lunged upward and came uncomfortably close to her perch. She made to climb further up the tree.

The shotgun went off, both surprising Zoey and putting her at ease. Shooting pellets from further away likely meant he could take out more at once. She shot occasional glances over her shoulder as she climbed further into the tree. The infected were far behind her, but she knew there was a chance they would have no problem catching up.

When she found a new perch, she scanned her surroundings again. The Molotov that Bill had thrown on the road had sparked a fire in the trees opposite the cabins. A few burning corpses lay on the road, and a trail of more zombies were hurtling north up the route towards them. There was no sign of the Straitjacket or the Goitre, but she could see something soaring from treetop to treetop just beyond the inferno. The evergreens swayed as the Hunter landed on each one, making it appear like a giant monster was charging through the forest.

"Hunter!" she shouted, hoping Bill and Louis could hear her from wherever they were. "Eleven to one o'clock!"

What happened next shocked her; she had never seen an infected jump so far with such strength. It rocketed down from the treetops to the road before the hotel, then subsequently flew up over the hill toward Zoey's tree. She felt a rush of panic stab her in the belly but she barely had a moment to comprehend the feeling before the Hunter slammed into the trunk just above her head, rocking the entire tree backwards. The tree bent at an alarming angle, and just before Zoey thought the tree would snap and fall to the ground, it zoomed backwards.

She latched on as it propelled forward. The Hunter cawed and swiped at her but before it could strike her it was slung out towards the hillside. It attempted to land as a cat would but ended up bouncing off the ground instead. Zoey remained locked to the tree, afraid that if she let go, she would surely fall and kill herself. With another quick glance at her surroundings, she dared climb higher.

The sound of the assault rifle _popped_ and Zoey frantically searched for its location. She could see the rapid fire sparking from up in a tree a good thirty yards from her own, and she searched the dark frantically, trying to get a peek of Bill but failing in the impermeable darkness. The Hunter appeared to take interest in the gunfire, and scrambled on all fours to leap towards the firefight.

"BILL!" Zoey screamed, hoping to high heaven he would hear her. The gunfire did not cease, however, and the Hunter screeched as it launched through the air. It disappeared from her view behind the cabin, and all she heard was Louis holler before Bill turn the air blue with one of his customary Jesus H. Murphys, then heard him fire a single bullet. There was a small rip-roar in the distance before Zoey saw a tree nearby catch flame. _Shit_. They would be caught in their trees, unable to escape the flames.

When Zoey was just about ready to admit defeat, something slimy, hot, and acidic wrapped around her neck. Her eyes bulged as she was yanked backwards out of the tree; she could feel things crunch in her neck and she briefly thought that her spinal cord had snapped and she would die when she hit the ground—

She hit flesh and bone with a thud and landed just so that her head was cushioned by something moist and unpleasant to the touch while her legs tangled with another pair. A telltale wheeze sounded from under her and a puff of smoke surrounded her face as the cold-hot tongue slithered around her neck.

Winded, but still mobile, Zoey scrambled off of the Smoker and attempted a dive roll to create distance between her and the infected. She reached for her pistols—her left was missing—and drew the right one, taking quick aim and firing. An explosion of grey-green smoke erupted around the zombie; it jolted, the elongated fingers on its right hand twitching restlessly as the tension washed away from its body.

Zoey ejected the clip and looked at her rounds. Two shots left.

Infected were closing in on her from the trees, so she ran the opposite direction, towards the parking lot. She had rammed her legs into the ground harder than she thought; the first step she took to run, she tumbled face-first into the ground. Now more cautious with her steps, she rose to her feet again and hobbled away.

She made for the car. The trunk was left popped; the garden tools lay in wait. Without looking she grabbed for the garden hoe and the spade, holding one in each hand. With less than three seconds to spare, she was charged by an infected. She lunged out with the spade and cut through flesh like it was made of cake; her attacker's cheek came clean off. The zombie spun around and swayed, seemingly stunned, and Zoey rammed the spade into the back of its head.

With her new found knowledge, she turned to the oncoming horde, now quick upon her, and held her weapons wide. The first infected lost its wagging tongue and had its left eye popped out easily; the second had its skull caved in; the third was rammed through the throat before it was torn apart. Zoey slashed and hacked like she had nothing left to hold her back.

A substantial pile of bodies was building at her feet, so Zoey began to draw the horde back closer to her, leaving a bloody trail in her wake. She was beginning to believe she had the upper hand in the fight when she felt the ground shake from underneath her.

In the short distance between her and the trees, she heard Louis shouting from somewhere behind her towards the left. Then she heard the cracking of a tree trunk. Unable to look, she grit her teeth, hoping over and over rapidly for Louis to be safe, oh God please let Louis be safe—

The tree creaked and groaned as it tipped over down the hill. Louis yelled hoarsely as it fell; the sound seemed to carry for longer than it should have, as if it had gone to slow motion. Zoey took out the last zombie and she spun to watch the danger coming.

Louis jumped off moments before his tree struck ground. He tumbled sporadically down the hill, his limbs flailing. Louis would be fine—he only had normal infected to contend with; south on the road, hurtling up the pavement, was the biggest motherfucker she had ever seen. Its skin was black, its shoulders overgrown; it ran stiffly on its knuckles like an overgrown gorilla.

Zoey had a fraction of a second to think—two of her companions were caught up in the trees, one had likely broken a limb or two, and she was being chased down by a horde _and_ a Tank. She was alone and in grave fucking danger.

So she ran. Instead of taking the open road north, she shot straight across the road into the adjacent forest, hurtling through the trees that hadn't caught fire yet. Given that it was so dark, Zoey collided into trees and tripped over roots about every second step. She knew that the trees would protect her, however hurt she got; the horde would likely get so frustrated that they would lose interest in her, while the Tank would be considerably slowed, unable to weave between the trees. However, she saw one major flaw to her plan, a rule that she had violated—one that the four of them rarely broke: Stick together.

The fire had spread to a good number of trees, but she was able to steer clear of the flames. What she could not escape was the smoke. About thirty seconds into the forest, she was forced to get on her hands and knees and crawl her way through the forest, which made her much slower and gave the infected the upper hand in catching up to her. While the majority of the horde would be weeded out, a good number would still be after her. And there was no telling when the Tank might give up the ghost, if it would at all.

She quickly realized she was bordering a river.

When she crawled up to the banks, she froze, staring at the black water like she was staring into the Grim Reaper's face. "No, no no no no no," Zoey breathed, shuffling on her hands and knees as if it would help find land in some other corner of the river. She looked over her shoulder, saw the outlines of the infected chasing her down, then looked forward.

The Goitre was standing on the opposite bank, its black mouth staring her down. She dropped her hoe, drew her gun, and fired her last two bullets at the creature. It stumbled but it did not back down. Zoey tossed aside the empty pistol and grabbed for the hoe again. Gentle wheezing reached her ears; before it shot at her, Zoey threw herself into the water, disappearing with a splash under the black current.


	4. 4

_I do not own VALVe or any of its affiliates. Consider this a disclaimer to the characters/themes/what have you presented in this story._

4

They were screwed. Francis and Zoey had been separated from the group; the latter had somehow been displaced from her perch in the tree and had run off into the burning bush. Louis's tree had been plain knocked over by the horde beneath them. If that wasn't enough, Bill had tried to set a Hunter on fire with a Molotov cocktail and sorely missed by a mile—now the bastard was running amok in the woods behind them—and now a Tank was storming down the road, attempting to chase after Zoey through the trees.

Worse was that Bill had two clips and twelve shots left. Who knew how many Francis had; Louis had announced he had four magazines left to use; and Zoey—last time she had counted—had nine bullets to her name. Bill had thought that would be enough to get them across the border. He never dreamed they'd run into a horde. _Another _horde.

Bill caught sight of Louis; he seemed to escape the zombies that had knocked his tree down without a scratch. He raced for the car and grabbed a pair of gardening shears. He both snipped and stabbed at the infected, doing a lot more damage than Bill would have imagined he would with just a gardening tool. They fell like flies around him. Looking back to the tree where Bill was perched, Louis hollered: "We need to run!"

"_No shit_!" He wasn't about to leave Zoey behind, though, no matter how much they needed to go. His own tree began to rock—he looked down to see the zombies working together to tip him over. Working _together_. The bastards kept surprising him every day. He squeezed off a couple rounds into the crowds, taking down one at a time. Louis ran over to the fallen tree to retrieve his gun.

"Bill!" Louis shouted. "Six o'clock!"

Bill looked over his shoulder to see the Hunter launching at him from a distant tree. It outstretched its arms and wailed as it soared towards him. Bill reared back and swung hard with the butt of his rifle. There was a sickening crack and the infected flipped head over heels in midair before falling limply to the ground. The horde beneath him seemed to swallow it whole, seemingly unperturbed, and kept shaking the trunk of the tree.

Louis retrieved his sub-machine gun in the nick of time and tucked it into his shoulder for controlled fire. The four zombies that chased him down sprawled out like rag dolls. One small victory led to a looming doom, however—the Tank caught on to the _rat-tat-tat_ of the SMG and abandoned its cause in the bushes to run down Louis.

"RUN!" Bill hollered. "Run like you've got fire shooting up your ass!"

Louis did. Some infected made chase, but most were still preoccupied with the old man in the tree. The evergreen was rocking so much now that Bill was sure he'd be tossed from it if he loosened his grip by even a modicum. The Tank gave up on Louis entirely and went straight for Bill's tree where a sizable crowd was forming.

The Tank reached in to the group with its massive arms and swept them aside like weeds. Infected went flying in every direction. The juggernaut grabbed one by each end—head and feet—and rammed it into the ground angrily before latching onto the tree and yanking it forcefully from the ground.

His insides jumped up as he fell down. Bill gripped the tree, put half his effort into not shitting his pants as he thought _Fuck fuck fuck I'm falling_ and made weak, throaty sounds when he tried to scream.

The tree tipped slowly at first and time slowed. He could hear his own thick breathing in his ears as if someone else was panting next to him. Finally his senses caught up with him; he scrambled to get on top of the trunk as not to be crushed under it and tensed for landing. But when the trunk hit the ground, his arms buckled underneath him and he smashed his face into the bark, biting the inside of his cheek as he bounced off the tree into its flayed out branches. The pine needles pricked at his back and arms and all the sound in the world momentarily muted before slowly fading back to normal. The first thing he heard was the Tank's roar as it galloped away.

Even though he felt slightly lightheaded, _GET UP_ echoed insistently in his mind until he attempted to do so. Vertigo washed over him and he had to catch himself before he fell; he used the trunk as a support to clamber clumsily to his feet. In the fall, he'd lost grip of his assault rifle, and the next thought that screamed at him was _FIND GUN_.

The Tank hadn't cleared all the infected; three of them charged him now. Even with his sluggish disadvantage, Bill knew two things: he wouldn't be able to run and he wouldn't be able to take them all on by himself. He had a window of three seconds to find a defence before they were upon him.

"Fug," Bill muttered, spluttering blood and spitting out a tooth in the process. He hated resorting to hand-to-hand. The first infected charged him and Bill threw a clumsy punch. The blow landed on its throat and knocked it off its feet, sending an unpleasant jolt through Bill's fist. The last two attacked simultaneously, the first wrenching back for a wide blow, the second dropping its head to ram Bill with its crown. Bill dodged the first but was winded by the second—they both went tumbling backwards. The infected flailed wildly on top of Bill, worming up the old man's body, growling, wailing, and hissing all the while. Bill struggled with it futilely, recognizing an opening when the zombie was halfway up. He drew his knee up swift and hard; zombie it may be, but human it was too. Its face twisted up in pain as Bill struck it between the legs a second time. Then the old man was able to shove the infected off of him with a pained grunt.

He slowly got to his feet and hobbled away as quickly as he could. No gun, no chance. There—poking out of the branches—he swiped it up into his grasp hungrily. The fire Louis had started had grown alarmingly, so he scurried off to a safe enough distance before he considered his predicament. He scanned his immediate vicinity to find not a single soul in sight, infected or immune. He listened. The Tank was somewhere nearby to the west, but it sounded distant enough to be of little threat to Bill. Louis... there would be little the old man could do for Louis now, but he knew the stupid kid would be safe enough behind the trees. Francis, to the extent of Bill's knowledge, was still cooped up in a tree. And Zoey...

"Damb id," he hissed sloppily, running for the bush beyond the road. His old war injury felt like it had ignited all on its own within his right leg, and the limp couldn't be avoided. If any of the others didn't look close enough, Bill would have likely appeared to be just another zombie.

When he cut into the trees, he bumped into every tree and bush imaginable, not being able to see a thing. His foot caught in a root and he biffed it into the dirt, taking a mouthful. It mixed with the blood and tasted of iron between his teeth.

"Zoey!" Bill called nasally, trying to search the dark but failing. "Zoey!"

When he got to his feet, he heard a low wheezing noise. When he turned, he saw the spindly infected standing before him, its gigantic mouth wide enough to swallow him whole.

A jet of black flew from the infected's mouth and struck Bill in the chest. He flew backwards into a tree, cracked the back of his head against the trunk, and went out cold.

* * *

><p>Francis couldn't recall a time when the four of them had been in the heat of a battle and had been split up. Rule one was to always stick together—even he didn't need to be told that by some hoity-toity military type to know it was important in this day and age. Now that he was sufficiently alone, wrapped around a tree trunk fifteen from the ground, and about two-hundred rounds too short to properly defend himself, he considered the possibility of death seriously for the first time since the Green Flu had swept across the unsinkable U.S. of A. near four weeks ago. And that was saying something for a guy who considered himself indestructible.<p>

There were a few stragglers around the base of his tree—about ten or so. He could see the Tank from where he was perched; it beat against the treeline senselessly, trying to get after Louis. Zoey was long gone into the bush opposite the hotel, and Bill had gone after her a minute before. Damn them all. No one ever thought about Fancy Francis. Sure, he was goddamn Superman, but he hated trees, he hated zombies, and he _hated_ not being with cordial company.

Francis made a show: he pouted and laid his shotgun over his knees, groaning and slapping his palm against his forehead. The infected below raged on, squealing and spitting like cats in heat. Down the route a ways, he heard the Screamer screech a second time. Then the sound was cut off abruptly.

"That better be a fireman," Francis hoped aloud, trying to peer down the route from his perch. The forest fires they had all started had ironically made it harder to see further away, and the road disappeared not far from the parking lot. He hoped that whatever came up that road next wasn't another Tank or that stick man of an infected.

A loud yelp drew his attention to the trunk below him. An infected was climbing steadily up the tree; the only feature Francis could make out was the eerie glow of its eyes.

When it scrambled close enough, Francis kicked out and knocked the zombie straight off the tree, crunching its nose in the process. It fell headfirst into the crowd below; two more began to climb up in its wake. Francis looked for other options; he couldn't necessarily climb down for obvious reasons, but he could certainly climb up. He didn't know what he'd do once he got there, but it was either climb or sit idly and wait for the worst.

Francis was not a born climber. He was built to have a bike between his legs, not a tree trunk. The bark scratched mercilessly at his thighs and the branches snapped against his face and sides. When he was about three feet from the top, he wrapped his arms around the thin branches. Suddenly the tree took a violent sway. When he neared another tree, he was gripped by a moment of insanity inspired by fear and let go. Only at the last moment did he remember to jump, and he fell several feet before receiving a face full of pine needles and branches. They scratched at his skin and made him bleed in various places, but Francis was too pissed with the tree to take notice. "Fucking—forests," he grunted, spitting and slathering as he wrapped his limbs around the tree, "I hate you."

Half of the infected caught on to Francis's tree transfer and switched between trunks to chase him. The other half continued trying to climb up the previous tree. Still spluttering, Francis climbed up slowly, getting scratches and pricks all over his skin from every direction.

Once he was near the top, he threw his body weight into the tree to fling himself to the next. But the tree snapped back with the force—which Francis was not prepared for. His arms were shaken loose and he was pitched forward, just shy of reaching the second tree. He plummeted to the ground.

"Fu—!" The breath was squeezed from his lungs. He kicked and swung, grasping for anything. His fingertips brushed the pine needles but barely made purchase. Ten feet from the ground he was able to snag his arm around a long, loose branch; his body snapped around, but the force was so strong that he lost his grip on the tree. He then subsequently smacked into a myriad of branches before he hit ground _hard_.

A thousand knives stabbed at his chest as he struggled to breathe. He knew he had to get up and run but his legs flopped around like big slow fish on land. Five zombies hurtled at him, shrieking and howling like dogs. They were upside down in his eyes, and leaves and twigs were kicked up from their feet, bursting outward towards him. It reminded him of the countless bar brawls he'd been in, and he knew the end result wouldn't be one he'd be looking forward to; he felt pinpricks on his back as he anticipated the first strike.

Gunfire made him nearly jump out of his skin; the zombies behind him fell to the side when they were pierced with bullets. Louis came running up from behind a tree and squeezed a few rounds into each one, making sure they wouldn't get up again. Then he flashed a _smile_ of all things at Francis.

"Good thing I was—"

"FUCKER!" Francis roared, doubling over and holding his side from the exertion. "You coulda killed me, numb nuts!"

"Could _not_," Louis bit back. "I got good enough aim."

"You fired from your damn hip! Those bullets coulda gone the opposite direction, the way you were shooting. Jesus!"

"You're welcome for saving your—" The ground shook and the trees around them shivered from the impact. "Run, run, run, run!" Louis said instead.

Louis took off past hobbling Francis towards the parking lot. The other infected who were scattered throughout the woods ran off in different directions, suddenly losing interest in the two nearby survivors. Louis looked around wildly as Francis came up from behind. "Where're Bill and Zoey?"

"I don't fucking know," Francis gasped, bending over and holding his ribs. The Tank bellowed from close by.

"Damn! C'mon!" Louis rushed ahead through the parking lot and onto the road, and Francis hobbled far behind. Louis cleared the asphalt and knifed into the trees. Francis went with him, sliding in between two trunks just as the Tank came barrelling down the hill. It was pitch black in the bush; they charged blindly through the thick of it, their only goal to keep away from the Tank.

"Wait a sec," Louis said, crouching down. Francis followed him reflexively. They sat in the dark, the sounds of roaring fire and infected touching their ears only gently from where they sat. Francis's eyes adjusted and he could make the outline of Louis crouched before him, pivoting on his heels and looking from side to side.

"What is—"

"_Shh_!"

"...What is it?" Francis whispered.

"I think... I hear someone sleeping," Louis said.

Francis strained his ears. Finally he caught on to faint sounds of nasally breath, punctuated by a light, rasping sound every few seconds.

"Bill?" Louis asked to no one in particular.

"Hey, William," Francis called rashly, earning him another stern "SHH!" from Louis. "Hey, William," he repeated more quietly.

There was no response, but when the faint rasping noise sounded again it became increasingly louder until it sounded like hissing. Then a spear shot between Francis and Louis and cracked the wood of the tree next to them.

"FUCK!" Louis roared, leaping to his feet and diving through the trees again, squeezing off rounds at random. Francis cursed over and over as he tried to follow suit, but clumsily hit everything in his path. The rasp followed behind him and he instinctively ducked before slimy black oil could rocket into his back. He was sure his head would split like a melon if that hawking infected managed to snipe him.

Louis was long gone, so Francis veered to his right to try and lose the zombie. Then he resorted to shooting up every which direction, not being able to keep track of where he was himself. Then he suddenly kicked something mushy and hard and toppled over it into the dirt. A long drawn out moan sounded from behind Francis.

"Bill!" Francis said, scrambling backwards and planting his hands all over the man's legs and up his torso, trying to get a feel for where he was. Bill seemed to be curled into a ball on the bush floor, unresponsive as if he were taking a nap. "Get up, Sarge, we gotta get the hell outta here!"

The old man didn't say anything; rather he moaned quietly. It sounded as if bubbles were popping on his lips. "Gitup," Francis growled, roughly yanking the older man up by an arm and swinging it around his shoulders. Bill cringed against his side and did nothing to help Francis carry him. As a result, the two were anchored to the spot momentarily as Francis fought to regain his balance.

"Louis!" Francis called, "I found Bill!"

"Where are you?" he shouted back. Francis couldn't tell where he was other than somewhere in front of him. There were two separate sounds of rustling in the trees, and Francis hoped the closer one was Louis.

"I'm right here!"

"Jes—shit, man, that doesn't help!"

"It's not like I've got a fucking compass!"

Gunfire burst in the trees, and the bullets thudded thickly against a tree trunk. Francis flinched in surprise. "Don't shoot!"

"I've got a _zombie_ on my ass, Francis!" Louis shouted, his voice echoing up and over the tops of the trees.

"You're gonna pop a cap in _my_ ass!"

"Aw, wha—you're seriously not being racist _now_, are you? Take cover or somethin'!"

Francis was going to argue, but when Louis shot off more bullets behind him and a stream of black spit cracked a nearby tree, Francis decided Louis's advice was sound advice. Bill's feet dragged across the ground; he groaned continuously like all the air was just leaking out of him. Up until that point Francis had not been concerned, but then he recognized the fact that Bill was on the wrong side of healthy. When he neared the treeline, he squinted in the dark to get a good look at the old man. He may as well have been a sack of potatoes.

The Tank wasn't visible, but he could hear it off somewhere in the vicinity. The two forest fires had grown so large that two of the cabins in the lodge had caught flame, along with the front desk and souvenir shop, and the fire on Francis's side of the road had to be half a mile wide in radius. There was also no sign of Zoey. "Fuck." Francis didn't want to think it, but a small voice told him she was dead.

Louis came hurtling after him. "GO, GO, GO!" he hollered, throwing an arm out towards the road for emphasis. Francis hobbled onto the road and nearly shit his pants.

The Tank was _trotting_ down the road like a goddamn carriage pony, the raging forest fire its backdrop. When it saw Francis, it reared, throwing its overgrown fists into the air and slamming them down onto the concrete, shattering bits of the road in the process. Francis would have dropped Bill had he been any other old geezer. He tried to run, but his legs turned to stone in the single second it took the Tank to bear down upon him.

Louis attempted to shove Francis away, but it ended up being an overly aggressive body-bump from the side. The larger man sidestepped half a foot to the right as Louis yelled at him to run, but the message wasn't clicking with Francis. Louis gave up the chase and aimed at the Tank, firing pointblank into its face. It skidded backwards and attempted to flail an arm over its face as if to swat away a fly, but the motion was wide and uncontrolled, and Louis ducked just in time to avoid the blow. "I said, _get—your—ass—OUT OF HERE_!"

Francis didn't bother to argue. Hoisting Bill further up his arms, he turned to flee, but was halted again.

The Stick Man was poised in front of him. Its silhouette was all he could see, a big black demon come to get him. This was always how Francis had imagined Hell.

The zombie landed on all fours in front of Francis, that horrible hissing sound gurgling from the back of its throat. "Louis, duck!" Francis shouted, falling to the side with Bill. Luckily his partner heard him and acted in time—goo shot from the Stick Man and struck the Tank square in the eyes. It howled and stumbled back several steps. Louis laid fire upon the Stick Man, rushing for cover. Francis started to retreat with Bill draped over his shoulders, watching the Tank with dreaded anticipation. All Tanks always recovered quickly, and they charged like they were built from the stuff gods were made of.

But the Tank howled and threw its overgrown chest out, its huge arms flailing as if to swat away something at its back. Because of the sheer size and grotesque shape of its shoulders, it could barely reach its arm sideways, so it resorted to throwing its body about like a riding bull. When it turned, Francis spied something peculiar on the large zombie's back.

Silhouetted against the fire, hanging on by some sort of mechanism, was a person, perched strategically against the Tank's hunched shoulders.

Francis called, "Louis, hold your fire!"

The girl was hanging for dear life by two small stakes of some sort buried in the Tank's back. She stayed steadfastly plastered to it, never once appearing to lose her grip. As much as she seemed in control of her perch, Francis started to realize that the only way off of the Tank now was to let herself be thrown off. Louis tucked his SMG into his shoulder and aimed only sparsely; he often lowered the nozzle and gazed on with concern.

Bill latched onto Francis's arm and pulled it hard, trying to get his attention.

A black missile shot from the Stick Man's mouth and missed Louis by a hair's width. He spun to the side to dodge it, squeezing the trigger and spraying bullets across the highway. Francis ducked over the old man; dirt spraid over him. When he looked up he saw Zoey nearly flying off the Tank's back and the Stick Man charging Louis like an overgrown spider. Bill tugged on Francis again, but he barely noticed.

Louis swung his gun around like a madman, trying to pistol-whip the infected. It crawled right over him, the sac at its throat smacking right into Louis's face. He scrambled to his feet and took the opportunity to run the opposite direction, not even bothering to shoot anymore; bullets were probably as rare as rainbows for him now—probably had more fingers than shots left. It wasn't the first time he had thought it, but _now_ Francis was really sure they were royally fucked.

Bill gave another firm tug again, and Francis had gotten so annoyed with the motion that he snapped "What?" Bill looked up at him with heavy, intense eyes, his face half covered with blood from his crooked nose, and he shoved a bottle of beer in Francis's face.

No, the Molotov he'd lost rolling down the hill! Francis snatched it almost greedily from the wounded man's grasp and looked to the scene. "Louis! I'm gonna fire 'em!" Francis warned.

"What?"

"I got a Molotov! Get the hell outta the way!"

"What about Zoey?"

"Move!"

Louis did as he was bid, and the Stick Man turned and opened its mouth to roar silently after him. The two giant infected were close enough that if Francis threw it right, he would be able to set both on fire. But the problem was the wildly thrashing Tank—if it turned at the wrong time, Francis would end up bathing Zoey in fire.

He turned to the forest fire—which had now spread to the lawn just behind him—and held out the Molotov to light the wick on the flames. He drew his hand back almost instantly, and the tip of the cloth caught just barely. Small or big, when he threw it, it would explode into a fury of fire.

"ZOEY! HEADS UP!" She seemed to be suspended in midair as the Tank swung her around. Francis brought his arm up in a wide arc.

The firebomb struck ground and spread within the blink of an eye.

Before the flames could lick the bottom of Zoey's shoes, she hoisted herself up on her stakes and climbed onto the Tank's shoulders, leaping off at the last second. The Stick Man shot up on its legs as the fire caught on its face, and the Tank spun itself around again as if Zoey were still on its back, only to dance right into the inferno.

Both infected thrashed about in pain, but only the Tank's howls could be heard. It charged south down the road, putting more speed on its knuckles than any Tank Francis had ever seen, the fire spreading quickly over its black skin. The Stick Man beat at its face furiously, its limbs thrashing unnaturally fast. Then it threw its arms wide, bent over backwards, and the sac at its throat exploded with the magnificent pop of a gigantic balloon.

Black goo went flying _everywhere—_on the asphalt, on Louis, on Francis, and in the fire on both sides of the road. The oil that struck the flames _SNAPPED_ and exploded like bombs. The fire behind Francis spat outward and licked at the back of his hairless head. He jerked forward and smacked the back of his head several times, ensuring he hadn't caught fire. His shirt had, however. Without much reluctance, Francis tore off the gaudy yellow thing and tossed it aside before scooping up Bill and jogging out to the road. The Stick Man lay sprawled on the pavement, its sac splayed open. Completely and utterly dead.

"Louis, you okay?" Francis called.

"Yeah, just—slimed," he responded, brushing off the black bile with revulsion in his face.

The old man grumbled something on Francis's back. "What, old timer?"

"Sed pud me down," Bill wheezed, adding a pained grunt to the end of his command.

Francis put him down none to gently and Bill stumbled on his feet, bending over and clutching his ribs. He spit out blood and coughed weakly. Blood covered his front from his nose. Francis didn't bother asking what shape he was in—it was obvious his shape wasn't a good one, and asking wouldn't make him feel better. Instead, Francis moved on to their last companion, who since jumping off a Tank had not moved. "Zoey!"

She turned her head to the side. She was sprawled out on her back like a starfish; when Francis saw her land, she had slipped on the grass by her heels and landed hard on her rear; if she hadn't broken her tailbone, she was likely momentarily paralysed from pain. "Zoey, can you stand?"

But when he stood over her, his heart leapt into his throat. "Oh, fucking hell." She was covered from head to toe in blood.

He knelt over her and looked for the wound while she gazed up at him dazedly. She muttered, "S'not mine."

"She okay?" Louis called after Francis.

He didn't reply. "I'm gonna carry you, okay, darlin'? We gotta get outta here."

He saw what she tried to nod, but if he hadn't been studying her closely he would have never seen a thing. So he slid an arm forcibly under her neck and another just under her rump, and when he lifted her she cried out and swore weakly. Not paying much mind, he rushed back to the road. "Let's go!"

"Where?" Louis asked. He was standing next to Bill, both with their arms thrown over one another for support.

"North."

"Where's that go?"

"Santa's house. Its the opposite direction the Tank went, is that good enough?"

"Good enough for me," Louis agreed, slowly urging Bill along. The old man hobbled at the younger man's side, and each step seemed a battle for him.

Five minutes up the road, there was a huge rumble and a loud _CLAP_ from far behind them. Francis and Louis ducked their heads instinctively and twirled around to face the south. Flames stood higher than the trees, and a thick ring rode up the tower and exploded off the end. Car didn't survive the explosion, seemed.

They stood watching for only a few seconds before they hastily continued down the road.


	5. 5

_I do not own VALVe or any of its affiliates. Consider this a disclaimer to the characters/themes/what have you presented in this story._

5

Signs pointed them in the direction of Millerton, only so few miles away on route 44. Not fifteen minutes into town, they came across a gaudy yellow sign (the letters had been rearranged to read "APOTHALIPSE WAR NOW 29.99") that had the word PHARMACY etched on top. Without much hope, Louis and Francis decided to stop there.

"We should find plenty of supplies then!" Louis remarked. "We should have no problem cleaning up their wounds."

"You a doctor now or somethin'?"

"Well... _no_, obviously, but, hey—we got pills here, that's enough M.D. to get these guys on their feet again, right?"

"Stop yappin' and start hoardin'."

Neither Francis nor Louis knew how to treat any of their wounds—in fact, neither of them knew how to check for wounds to begin with. But one thing Francis was confident of was setting a broken nose. In the tumult of fighting and running, Francis hadn't thought to treat Bill's nose when he saw it. It had been left to get swollen for too long, and chances were he wouldn't be able to fix it properly. Bill would bitch later if he didn't try, though. So Francis found a pack of cotton balls and took a bottle of anti inflammatory from the shelves before returning to Bill.

Francis splashed some water over Bill's face and wiped it away carefully with one hand. Bill stirred a bit, grunting with distaste, but Francis got to work more quickly to ensure the job would be done before Bill woke up to realize what was about to happen. The biker pulled his belt from his pants and folded it over itself before shoving it between Bill's teeth. "This might sting a bit," he muttered under his breath as he placed both palms on either side of his nose and pushed while sliding them down towards the old man's chin.

Bill howled in pain and bit hard into the belt. Angry as a wasp yet groggy as a sloth, he reached up clumsily and tore the belt from his mouth. "Fack!" he spat as blood and mucus poured freely into his mouth and down his front. Louis leaned forward immediately and invaded Bill's space, forcibly shoving cotton balls up his nose. Bill swatted him away and shoved the cotton balls up his nasal passage himself. Louis then handed him the bottle of water, and Bill poured it over himself and took a few great gulps, drinking up the last drop.

"Hurt anywhere else?" Francis asked.

"If I told you, would you poke and prod at that, too?" There was a wheeze in Bill's voice, but his natural rigour seemed to not be damaged in the least. "I think some ribs are broke."

"Should I wrap those?" asked Francis.

"No!" Bill had shouted too hard, and ended up coughing up blood. Zoey stirred and squirmed. "No, never wrap broken ribs. That's just sealing the wax on the death sentence."

"Okay, no wraps. Pills?"

"Give 'em."

Louis also grabbed the pills from Francis's pile of supplies and popped open the child safety cap. Bill made some quip about how he could handle his own child safety caps, thank-you-very-much, and swallowed two or three. The bottle said not to mix with other medications, but he took the anti-inflammatory anyway. "See to Zoey, would you?"

"How you doin', Zoey?" Louis asked eagerly.

She seemed to be awake enough to answer questions. "My heels hurt."

"Might be you bruised them. You're covered in blood, but I'm assumin' it's not yours." Francis squatted down next to her.

"No... it was that infected, the one that screamed." She opened her eyes a crack and began to giggle weakly.

"What?"

"You ditched the haiku shirt," she said between fits. She winced whenever she laughed to hard, and gently swung her head to the side, leaning back on the wall. "I'm tired."

"That's an understatement." Francis started prodding at her ribs. "That hurt?"

"Yes!" She shoved his hands away. "You're bad at checking for broken bones. I'm fine, just... my feet."

"Want pain killers?"

Her only response was a throaty moan bordering on ecstasy. She reached hungrily for the bottle and poured a few into her hand, swallowing them dry. Louis handed her water, and she downed that as well. Once the bottle was empty, she let her arm fall limply to the side, and she seemed to instantly black out.

The three men seemed to think she had a good idea, so they set about making comfortable sleeping arrangements. There was nothing in the way of blankets or pillows in the store, other than packs of toilet paper. Louis agreed to stay awake to keep them alerted, though they knew that would do them no good without guns. When the three of them went to sleep, Louis quietly poked around the store for things to use as weapons. As he dug around the back counter, he found a slip of paper hidden beneath a bunch of paper work in a drawer that had a five number combination on it. Underneath the floor mat at the foot of the till, he found the safe.

Rays of gold light may as well have been radiating from the vault when he opened it. "Oh, sweet gun-toting America," Louis said under his breath, "I love you."

Soon after, Louis ensured they would all be armed and amply supplied with ammo, and decided the threat of attack was meek enough that he could take a nap as well.

* * *

><p>Zoey recovered where Bill declined. The old man had fallen into a coma of sorts, or so Francis kept calling it, for he hadn't seemed to be conscious for more than a day. He would often moan and groan in pain and cough up blood, and it was all they could do for him to prop him up on more packs of toilet paper and try to keep him comfortable. Louis took the unfavourable task of finding a pseudo bed pan to stick under Bill's bottom. His pants stayed down and several rolls of toilet paper were unfurled over his lap for decency. Zoey was forced into a similar position, for her feet hurt too much to stand. She was furious about it, more out of shame than inconvenience.<p>

On the third day, Francis had declared that the pharmacy food tasted like shit and that it had become to god damned cold to keep going around without a shirt. So he and Louis ventured out into town on Zoey's urging. "I'll be fine, I've got a gun and a mountain of bullets," she had reassured them. "Just make sure you bring me back some clothes, too."

When they neared the core of the town, Louis shouted loud enough to shame an air raid horn when he stumbled across someone who was still alive, but it turned out to be an infected, slowly dying from sickness or starvation or thirst. Francis kicked it in the face savagely and smothered the life from it instantly. It felt like he'd been called over by a girlfriend to stomp out a spider. He was preparing to make a joke about it, but came up empty handed. "Don't squeal so loud next time," he grumbled before entering the clothing store. Louis sulked behind him.

It also felt weird searching for clothes with Louis. More than once did Francis lift up a shirt, hold it against his bare chest, and ask, "How 'bout this one?" Louis went along with it for a while until both of them realized what they were doing (once they were checking out their assess together in the changing room mirrors) and that put an end to the shopping spree fun. They simply grabbed handfuls of clothes, helped themselves to some bags, and left.

Over the next few days Bill would weave in and out of sleeping and waking. Louis had been able to find blankets in another store further into town, and not a moment too soon—the next day a light snow peppered the ground outside. Francis, Zoey and Louis had been more terrified at the sight than had a Tank been dancing outside their door, but by midday the snow melted away. From then on they all agreed it was a lot colder than usual, and spent their days wrapped up in blankets.

By the fifth day, Bill got worse. He picked up a fever and a raspy cough and started blurting out words in delirium. Zoey was so concerned that she bundled up close to him as if her proximity alone would help the poor man. He would only wake up occasionally, and when he did he would muter nonsense and slip back into his own abyss. Once he woke up and started calling Zoey Trish instead. "Who's Trish?" Zoey asked Louis.

"Granddaughter. Didn't he tell you?"

Zoey suddenly felt a sinking feeling in her chest. _I don't know him at all. _"Never mentioned it," she said weakly, turning away from Louis so he wouldn't see the weakness in her eyes. 

Francis had become increasingly worried with Bill's health, but he hid it well. He nonchalantly gave the old man some antibiotics that he had found in the back of the store, not knowing exactly what they were for and not knowing if it would help him at all. To cover his concern, he avoided the topic altogether when Zoey or Louis asked him. "The old man's tougher than dry shit, he'll be up in no time."

On the sixth day, Zoey woke up to find Bill and Louis still asleep, but Bill sitting straight up, an angry expression on his face.

Zoey's heart lurched in her chest, but she managed to hide her elation in a small smile. She propped herself up on one elbow. "You slept in," she said.

"I'm starving," he muttered back.

Zoey was still placed next to him—she had tried walking, but only a little at a time, and so spent much of her hours on the floor next to the vet. She handed him the box of crackers she had been nursing over the better part of the previous day. "Ritz?"

Bill grumbled acceptance and sat up carefully, ensuring not to hurt himself, before stuffing a hand in the box.

"How's your nose?" she asked.

"Feels like a duck's bill," he said, touching it gingerly.

"Looks more like you grew a radish on your face. I think it might be permanently crooked."

"Ah, well, every man's got his scars."

"Yeah. Maybe now you'll be a bigger hit with the ladies."

He made no comment to that; he reached into his breast pocket looking for the pack of cigarettes, only to find them gone. "Ahh... sumbitch."

"Maybe it's a sign," Zoey said in a sing-song voice, munching on more crackers.

Louis bolted straight up. "Coffee!" he yelled, spluttering from sleep. His outcry made Francis jump in his sleep, and with a groan he slowly began to wake up.

"Morning, Louis," Zoey said. "Look who's decided to join us."

"Agh..."

Louis stared at Bill for a good five seconds before any recognition dawned on his face. "Bill!" Louis said, slapping the old man on the shoulder. Bill winced, but said nothing. "Damn, man, good to see you awake!"

Francis sat up groggily, looking Bill up and down with puffy eyes and cocking his head in greeting. Zoey concealed a smile; now that Bill was awake, Francis reverted back to tough guy mode, and pretended he hadn't been worrying over the old man for the chunk of a week.

"Got somethin' for ya," Francis said, extracting first a lighter from one jean pocket, then a pack of cigarettes from the other.

"Are those...?" Bill began.

Francis tossed the cigarettes to Bill. He caught them and looked at the label longingly, stroking the plastic wrap covering the gold lettering. "Romeros," he muttered wistfully.

"Don't thank me or anything," Francis grumbled. Bill didn't. Instead he pulled out a cigarette, placed it between his lips, and snapped on the lighter. He sighed contently, the smoke billowing out from him like a steam whistle. A fit of bloody coughs followed.

"You shouldn't be smoking right now," Louis said, "you'll only make yourself worse."

"I'd rather die with my boots on," Bill replied languidly, taking another drag of the smoke. Zoey smiled.

Bill was asleep more than he was awake that day. He was on the mend but he was still weak. Zoey was starting to feel confident enough to walk again, though her legs still felt like soggy spaghetti and her heels burned when they touched the ground. Fighting zombies for weeks without more than a scratch, and then she gets debilitating bruises from jumping off a Tank's back. As she hobbled across the floor, she cursed her rotten luck.

The day following, exactly a week since they had settled into the pharmacy, Bill woke up and asked about the battle at Breadloaf Mountain Lodge—his memory was black from the time he broke his nose on the tree to when he opened his eyes to see Francis sitting beside him and a Molotov cocktail. The three of them had saved the conversation until Bill had recovered; it had been days of bottling up wonder and fear, and it all exploded into a mess of a conversation, each one trying to talk over the other. It was like sitting in a room with a bunch of ladies wanting to share the latest gossip over daytime soap operas.

"Calm down, calm down," Bill said, "one at a time, you sound like a bunch of yapping yuppies."

"Those two infected, the Straitjacket and the Goitre," Zoey said, "we need to talk about them."

"Weird names," Francis said. "I called them the Screamer and the Stick Man."

"I was partial to Banshee and Slendy myself," Louis added.

"Whatever you call 'em, they're still infected we haven't seen before." Bill crossed his arms over his chest gingerly. "One that can shoot bile like it's a missile and another that can draw more attention to itself than a prima donna. I hope we don't meet any more of those."

"They're getting tougher and smarter, too," said Zoey. "The Goitre cornered me into a river and made me swim. Some infected followed me down the stream, and I swear to God some of them were swimming. When I came across the Straitjacket, it tried to kick at me when I attacked it—like kick-boxing type stuff, scary martial arts for an infected. And that Tank... it's shoulders were bigger than a truck, I kid you not."

"The Stick Man—Goitre, whatever—anyone get hit by that stuff?"

"I did," Bill said, motioning to his ribs. "It was like getting punched through with shrapnel."

"Was it that stuff we found back on the highway from the airport?" Zoey asked. "The black puddle you said wasn't oil?"

"Prolly was," he replied.

"Super flammable too, huh?" Francis threw his arms wide and made explosion noises for effect. "Wouldn't wanna get hit with a Molotov made outta that stu—oh, man, I wanna try that."

"Speaking of," Zoey said, folding her own arms over her chest, "I'm quite aware that you threw a Molotov in my general direction while I was bull riding a Tank. What the hell were you thinking?" Her words were halfway between understanding and bristled.

"What, I knew you'd be okay," Francis defended himself.

"Not everyone is as invincible as you are," she shot back, motioning to her feet. "You could've had me killed.

"Coulda, but didn't. And we're all here laughing about it now."

"Laughing. Har-har."

"I know you're not mad at your Favourite Francis."

"Whatever."

"And what about that Hunter!" Louis threw in exultingly, trying to lighten the mood and get the conversation back on track. "I've never seen a Hunter _fly_ so far..."

"You wouldn't believe what it was wearing," Bill said, reaching for the Romeros. His long lost love, returned at last. Louis shot him a look that bespoke of utter disapproval, but Bill shoved a smoke between his lips all the same.

"Prada." Zoey barely offered a smirk with her joke.

Bill squinted his eyes questioningly at her as he snapped on the lighter and lit the cigarette. "Foliage."

"What the hell is foil-age?" Francis blurted.

"Branches, leaves, vines—foliage, dumbass, what the hell did they teach you in school?"

"Not about wilderness an' shit."

"Je-sus. If I had a dictionary right now, I'd hit you with it."

"I definitely saw a thesaurus somewhere around here," Zoey added zestfully, "would that do?"

Bill wanted to crack a smile, but he grew grave instead. "It had more wits about it that the other Hunters we've ever met, covering itself up in camouflage like that." He inhaled heavily and gave three great puffs, letting some of the smoke billow out his nostrils. "They're changing."

"Where have I heard that before?" Francis said.

"I'm serious."

"I know you're serious, you putz. You're the most serious man I've ever met, including my parole officer. But maybe it's not them getting smarter—maybe it's survival of the fittest, and the longer we survive, pluck off the dumb ones, the harder it's gonna get."

"I hate it when Darwin barges into it," muttered Zoey.

"Anyway," Louis said, "maybe you both have a point. But we've lasted this long, huh? Maybe if we can bunker down here over winter, we'll have them beat."

"Son, I'm far more worried about the winter than I am about the Flu," Bill replied. "If the zombies don't kill us, the cold will."

"So which one would you rather face?" Zoey asked. "Which one do we have a better chance against?"

Bill gazed pointedly at the floor. "I don't know if I can face either."

"Louis and I found enough food in just the houses up the block," Francis said. "Let's pick the town clean, relocate to some warm, cozy, white picket fence place and settle down. We can build fires in the fireplace and make s'mores and shit. We could probably beat the winter _and_ the zombies."

"Yeah!" Louis agreed. "Not like we can keep moving with winter on our heels, right? We can probably find someplace warm and tough in this town to keep out any infected that come knocking on our door."

Zoey looked at Bill. Bill usually waited for her looks; he could better tell what she was thinking by reading her face rather than listening to her words. Her features were soft but questioning, her eyebrows arched as if to say, "Why not?"

"I suppose we'd sooner reach Hell than Montréal, anyway," Bill grumbled. "I'm not fit to walk there any time soon."

"Smartest thing I've ever heard you say, old timer," Francis said jovially. Louis laughed, all boyish charm shining in his face. Bill looked at Zoey again. She smiled her small smile.

"But I'm not comfortable until I know the perimeter of the town," the vet added distastefully. "We don't make our final decision until I can walk this place through and know it better than the back of my hand."

Francis scoffed. "You'll be outdoors 'til Spring."

"Gimmie a rifle, damn you." Francis did as he was bid, and Bill checked it out thoroughly, making sure he knew where the safety was, how to reload it and fire it, and what bullets he needed to find. Then, with painstaking care, Bill slowly rose to his feet. He stood on the spot for a moment, one arm wrapped around his ribs, the rifle held loosely at his side. _I'm getting old_, he thought forlornly. "Give me the tour, Soul Patch."

"I told you, it's a—Christ, never mind." Francis got to his feet, his bones and joints creaking and cracking, and he picked up his pistols from beside his toilet paper pillow. "Wanna come with?" he asked Louis.

Louis got to his feet, looked down at Zoey, and held out a hand. "Think you can walk it, too?"

She took his hand and gingerly got to her feet. She didn't think she would be able to go very far, but she needed to feel normal again, to have a gun in her hands, to be on the lookout for danger. "I can tough it out," she said.

They walked together in a different formation this time; Bill was in the back with Francis, and Louis led Zoey up front. They didn't want to pair to injured fighters together on the front lines. Francis did as he promised himself and pointed Bill to the clothing store. "I don't care if there's a hundred zombies in there, I've done enough clothing shopping to last me a lifetime already." Louis chuckled.

An hour later, they had done a quick walk through of the town and only came across a handful of infected. They dispatched the zombies without so much as an upward glance. It was chilly outside, but even as Zoey shivered and shuffled along the road, she sighed contently after every infected she killed.

They came across a giant hummer sitting in the driveway of a house not much bigger than the vehicle. It was a comical sight; Zoey imagined the owner of the car also lived in the home and was an old grandmother who liked to bake cookies and speed on the highway.

Francis motioned to the car. His voice was light and airy, like he had the best idea in the world, when he said: "Hey, you guys wanna—"

"No," the other three answered unanimously.

"Fine," he muttered. "I was just gonna suggest we sit in it."

Zoey looked over her shoulder at him briefly. "I thought you hated cars."

"No, just Fords. And Japanese ones."

"I think I could go the rest of my life never touching a car," she added thoughtfully. Cars were one thing Zoey would never look at the same ever again.


End file.
